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The thing about social relevance is it has to still be relevant. Some of the examples out there, like linking to Google+ profiles that aren't updated vs twitter
by shadowfiend 15y ago
The thing about social relevance is it has to still be relevant. Some of the examples out there, like linking to Google+ profiles that aren't updated vs twitter profiles that are, throw relevance right out the window in the favor of a “social” link.
In essence, if they can't get those social signals via fb or twitter, they simply shouldn't use them. Trying to build your own social network that is getting questionable traction (at least among the majority of the people I know), then using that network to judge search results, means that your search results suffer. Your social network has to be the one people are using before the social signals are actually useful and can be said to truly help with relevance.
That is the fundamental problem here, and unless the promotion of Google+ content results in better (not higher, because they've got plenty of accounts, but better) traction for that social network, then they're shooting result quality in the foot, if not directly in the head.
- joebadmo 15y agoI agree that the social relevancy stuff is clearly not very good yet. But 1. I expect it to get better; and 2. Google faces a chicken-and-egg problem of not being able to extract meaningful signal from an unused social network, and a social network that no one will use, especially if it has no meaningful impact on search. Bootstrapping the social product by funneling your actually successful product's users into it seems like a fairly obvious and reasonable approach to me. (I'd rather not get into an antitrust argument here, since that's been done to death, and I find it pretty uninteresting to begin with.)