Earlier today Google’s new Search Plus Your World (SPYW) disappeared from my Chrome browser for several hours. It was back to what looked like “Google Classic.” After a browser restart a few minutes ago SPYW was back…but something had changed.

Suspecting that the “downtime” might have been Google installing an algorithm change, I did the now classic “proof search” for SPYW: “music.” Until today, this search returned Britney Spears as the top result in the “People and Pages on Google+” box for all users.

Results before today - Searchengineland.com

Also, Britney’s Google+ profile was near the top of page 1 of the actual results when searching for her name. This result was roundly criticized by many tech bloggers as delivering less-than-relevant results, as Britney has far larger followings (and posts more often) on other networks, such as Twitter.

Where’s the Britney?

But now a search for “music” gives me the “People and Pages” box shown below.

Three more obscure musicians, certainly less famous than Britney. Each of them has a large six-digit following, but perhaps more important: each of them posts more recently and more frequently than does Britney.

Could Google SPYW be moving toward more real relevance?

Hello, Twitter!

So next I searched “Britney Spears.” First result is her personal web site (as it should be). Second is her Wikipedia page. Following that area number of popular YouTube videos. But most significantly, the first social media result is Twitter, and her Google+ profile isn’t even on the first page!

Other users I asked on Google+ are seeing the same sort of changes today. This looks like a major response to one of the most strident criticisms of the new Google search.

So, I thought it was time to put some data to the test using the same Wikipedia Link Modeling that we had used in past to test theories on Link Depth, Link Proximity and other link diagnostics.

Last year, after SEOMoz’s ground breaking work on the relationship between Latent Dirichlet Allocation and Google rankings, we brought on Andrew Cron, a Ph.D. statistics candidate at Duke University to build our own in-house LDA model. While we now use this in nearly every content writing endeavor, it has also been useful to test out theories about content relevance.

The Plan

The strategy is actually quite simple.

1. Get the backlinks of around 50 unique Wikipedia articles and then determine the LDA score of the title of those Wikipedia pages to the content of the backlinking pages.
2. Compare a single piece of content to 1000 randomly selected words to determine the random distribution of english language topical relationships
3. Observe if Wikipedia backlinking pages generally out-perform random content in terms of relevancy.

The Results

The results were actually quite unimpressive. From what we can see, the overwhelming majority of pages that link to Wikipedia articles share no discernible topical relevance above that of random content to the article they cite.

Why People Link

We actually find that this reinforces two reasons why people link out on the web.

1. Citation Links: These are links where the webmaster is citing content they have included on their page. You would expect high LDA scores because the writer is merely giving credit to the original source of that content (quoted or paraphrased).

• Descriptive Links: These are links where the webmaster is choosing to link to content rather than write about it. Because the link is offered in lieu of writing out the content, you can expect lower than average LDA scores. The link is there explicitly so the related content does not have to be. It is an alternative to relevant content.

Take Aways

Does this mean you should avoid getting links from related sites? Absolutely not. However, it does mean that you should not give up a link solely because the content is not textually similar to the content on your page. If the link is good for the user, it is good for Google.

Of course, it will also take this average over multiple queries within a given time period but your average positions should start improving, going forward. Your historical data will not change, according to Google.

A great example is electricviolinshop.com. Don’t try beating them in the search results for almost any query with “electric violin” in it!

Often you can find domain names with subtle variations of the long-tail terms you are targeting available for $10 from your favorite registrar. In some instances, though, you may be forced to purchase them from an existing owner or through an auction. Virante has a simple formula we use in helping our clients determine an acceptable price to pay for these domains.   Please note this is not a method that applies to all domains, but rather for long-tail terms in which an exact match domain would likely obtain top positioning in the search engines with little “encouragement.”

Exact Match Domain Value Formula

The formula Virante suggests for buying an exact match domain is pretty straight forward. You will need to know the following:

1. How many searches occur for the exact keyword phrase in Google per month (X).  You can obtain this data from Google Adwords Keyword Tool.
2. Your expected conversion rate for people visiting that page (Y).
3. The profit you would earn on each conversion (Z).
4. How many months you are willing to wait to recoup your initial investment (M).

We assume with an exact match domain you will rank #1 for that keyword and attract 35% of the available traffic. You can then figure out the revenue that the site would bring in monthly by using:

X*Y*Z*.35

Then you subtract the expected monthly costs of maintaining the site (hosting and domain name registration fees; probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $10/mo):

((X*Y*Z*.35)-10)

Finally, you multiply it by the number of months you are willing to wait to recoup your investment:

((X*Y*Z*.35)-10)*M

And that gives you the price you can pay to buy the exact match domain.

So, lets assume our target long-tail keyword gets 170 visitors a month. Let’s also assume you make $100 profit on each conversion, you expect a 5% conversion rate, and you can wait up to 2 years to recoup your money (24 months):

(170*.05*100*.35)-10)*24 = $6900

Under those circumstances, you could pay up to $ 6900  for the long-tail exact-match domain. Granted, most people want to recoup their money in 12 months, and expect only a 1% conversion rate. In this specific case, you would likely want to spend less than $600 on the domain. Knowing your profit margin and your ability to wait to recoup your money is extremely important.

Virante normally recommends to clients that they advertise using Google Adwords for that exact keyword to determine the expected conversion rate and potential traffic. You can also get a clearer estimation of the number of exact match searches that way, by looking at your impression data.

(Photo credit: Eric M. Martin on Flickr. Used through a Creative Commons license.)

So you’ve followed the sage advice of savvy social media experts like Neal Schaffer, telling you why you need to have your business on Google+, and you’ve created a business page for your brand.

Now what?

Obviously (I hope it’s obvious!) the worst thing you could do is just let your page sit idle. So let’s set some priorities and get to work making your page effective. The recent announcement by Google that G+ is now heavily integrated into Google search makes it all the more important that you optimize your page and start your involvement on Google+. G+ is still young, but it’s growing rapidly. Early adopters of any new social media outlet gain significant advantages over the competition, and it’s not too late to claim that space in Google+.

Read more >>>

1. How to Get Yourself Featured in New Google Search plus Your World Personalized Search

2. How to Show Your Google+ Profile Photo in Google Search Results

3. How to Add Administrators to Your Google+ Business Page 

4. How to Verify Your Google+ Brand Page with Google 

5. How to Use Google+ Ripples to Increase Your Social Capital 

6. Complete Guide to Optimizing Your Google+ Brand Page (featured by Guy Kawasaki in his “Mega-list of how-to guides for Google+ brand pages” )

7. How to Use the Post from Google+ Search Feature – Start a conversation around a set of search results

Here’s how it works on a breaking news item (about the Costa Concordia, a luxury liner that ran aground off Italy):

Now at the top of any Google+ search for posts from Google+, you’ll see a “Join the discussion about [search term]” box (arrow). Notice also the Pause button (red  rectangle), handy for breaking news because the search stream updates in real time.

Click in the “Join the discussion” box and you get the familiar Google+ sharing box. Notice it has all the familiar features: add photos or videos, a link, or a location. Just as usual, select the circles you want to share with and click “Share.”

Your post is posted to the circle(s) you selected…but it also is inserted into the search stream where anyone who does that same search and is in the circles you chose (or everyone, if you made it public), can find it there. Anyone who can see the post can comment on it, not only in your stream, but also right in the search stream! There is also a convenient link in the post to the search stream from which you shared it.

For right now, the most useful aspect of this new feature is the convenience of posting to your circles about a topic you’re searching without having to leave the search stream. Imagine how this might be for a true breaking news story. You go to the search stream for the story, create a “Join the discussion” post, share it with your friends, and then watch as the discussion builds, while you are keeping an eye on the real-time flow of posts in the search stream.

Try that on Twitter!

Almost all of the focus has (naturally) been on the heavy Google+ presence in the new personal search. But what many might be missing is that Google+ was already having a strong influence on the “pure” Google results…and it still is.

Here’s an example that just happened to me today.

This morning I put on Google+ a post titled “All My Google+ Guides in One Post.” A short while later it was shared by Google+ user +Denis Labelle, resulting in at least 56 known re-shares (see the “ripples” of that post). Denis Labelle is followed (“circled” in Google+ parlance) by 37,820 people, and is ranked 498th of all Google+ users by circlecount.com.

At 4:30 this afternoon, here’s what the Google results for “google+ guides” looked like for me, logged in to Google+ and in the personal search view:

Google Results in Personal Search

You can see that Denis’s post sharing my post is in the #2 position.

But next I searched the same phrase (“google+ guides”) in a different browser, not logged in to Google. And this is what I got:

Google Results Not Logged in to Google.

Notice that Denis’s post from Google+ is still in the #2 position (the top item is an ad).

Conclusion: Google+ has a lot of oomph in Google search results, even with the new personal search turned off. If you are a content producer and are on Google+, and you’ve been following my guidelines, and you’ve been building a good network that includes powerful influencers like Denis Labelle, you already know that Google+ needs to be a major part of your SEO and marketing strategy now!

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Want to take advantage of the new social-SEO revolution? Virante , already a leader in the SEO industry, is uniquely positioned to enable you to do so. We’ve been on Google+ since it’s first week, and we’ve been intensely testing and studying the best methods to get your business noticed, on Google+, search, and throughout the social web. Our contact info is in the sidebar. Let us know how we can help get you noticed!

For more great insights on Google+ and social media marketing in general, follow author Mark Traphagen on Google+.

The personalized results side now shows a ramped-up “social search,” pulling in more material relevant to you as based on your social relationships (as defined by your Google+ profile). The non-personalized results are more like “Google pure,” although some social material, such as public Google+ posts, will still be pulled in.

Two Sets of Search Results: What About the AdWords Ads?

So now for any given search query, there are not only two sets of search results (with a toggle button to switch between them), but two different sets of ads.

Look at this actual search. I searched for “wood stingray violin” (a really cool electric violin, by the way!). Here’s what I got on the “personal” side of the new search results:

Ad rankings with "personal" turned on

Notice that the ad for electricviolinshop.com is in the #1 position.

Now I immediately toggled over to the “non-personalized” results for the same query.

Ad ranking with personalization turned off

The ad for electricviolinshop.com is in the #2 position. It’s important to emphasize again what’s happening here: for the same search query, executed only once, ads for the same advertiser display in two different rank positions. I can’t think of any other way to look at this besides from now on, there are two ranking “auctions” executed for every one search query.

Here are the questions we’ll want answered:

1. How does this affect stats? What about things like impressions? If the searcher toggles between the two views, does each generate an impression? And what about average ad position? How is that calculated now if ads can show in different positions for the same query action?
2. How will we manage for this change? Is the AdWords management interface going to change to reflect the new search? Will there be segments available to see stats for personalized vs. non-personalized? Will we be able to bid separately on them?

I’ve put these questions to AdWords Product Manager +Jon Diorio on Google+. I’ll let you know if he gets back to me with anything.

With the introduction of the new Search plus Your World change to Google search (which more closely integrates Google+ and other social entities into Google search), Google just put chocolate in your peanut butter, bringing search and social together in a way that opens up whole new levels of opportunities for content producers.

Related People & Pages: Power to the People!

As part of the Personal side of the new Google search, Google has introduced “Related Pages and People.” For relevant topical searches, Google search will display a sidebar box labeled “People and Pages from Google+.” The box displays some active Google+ users who post frequently about the topic you’re searching. If you’re logged in to Google+, you can add them to your Circles right from the box.

Obviously, this could be huge for you if you are trying to build yourself as an authority in a topic are via your online content.

So How Do You Get Yourself Featured on Google Related People and Pages?

The great and encouraging answer is that this feature is not just for +Britney. This morning my Google+ friend +Gerwin Sturm, who is passionate about origami and posts a lot on Google+ about the topic, showed up in that featured box:

Gerwin is a great guy, but he’s no celebrity. If he did it, you can too. Obviously, it helps to be after a niche topic (good luck ousting Britney from the “music” featured box). Here’s how you can conquer your niche:

1. Fill out your Google+ profile

Make sure it is as complete as possible. Include a high quality photo of yourself, and make sure to mention your key topic interest areas in the introduction. Include links to all your other public social media presences.

2. Post about your topics

Write frequently about your central topics. Don’t spam; create useful, original content that your followers will enjoy.

3. Encourage engagement

A major factor Google’s algorithms evaluate in deciding who to put in the featured box is not only frequency and consistency of posting about the topic, but engagement by your followers. This means the more +1′s, comments, and reshares you get on those topical posts, the more “juice” you’ll have with Google to get featured.

You can’t force engagement, of course, but you can encourage and foster it. First and foremost, be interesting and helpful! But don’t shy away from calls to action. Politely invite followers to reshare, comment, and +1 if they like your stuff.

4. Build a following

There’s no way to force people to follow you, but if you consistently practice 2 and 3 above, participate in the community (comment, +1, reshare other’s posts), and make yourself indispensable on your topic, the numbers should follow. Followings can grow faster on Google+ because of how easy it is to add anyone to a circle (just by hovering over their name) and the power of things like Shared Circles.

That’s it!

Oh…and this works for Google Business Pages as well. Welcome to the new SEO!