Google has enacted big changes that should dramatically affect search ranking results and certainly get the SEO community up in arms. Google’s new feature “Search Plus Your World” was launched today, and many users have already experienced the differences. Some pros in the SEO community are beginning to question how much the new feature favors Google+.

Signed Out Users Seeing Google+ Suggestions Offered

Search Engine Land reported that Google+ data has been offered even when signed out of the account. Originally, we figured the changes to the search results pages would be for logged in users only. This is quite a surprising change that may show just how profound of a change the “Search Plus Your World” feature may be for SEO.

New additions to search

• Search for photos shared with you on Google+
• Receive photos uploaded by you and your connections as search result suggestions
• Google profiles may appear right as you type a name in search
• Google+ posts and comments that have been shared with you will now appear in your search results

Certainly, the availability of the content from Google+ will be determined by the visibility settings specified by the user who submitted that content. The visibility categories are:  1. Public 2. Extended circles 3. Limited and 4. Only you.  Google’s new direction is heavily focused on the categorization of content, which will pave the way for new ways of personalization, creating recommendations and promoting engagement within the network.

Google and Bing have been at war with low-quality websites and content farms, and their tactics have also struck fear in many legitimate publishers as well–keeping all on their toes.

One of the big problems that search engines are tackling are knock-off websites and copied, scraped or duplicated content. Such content is often less than desirable for search users, as such content was flooding the web for a broad array of keyterms from “how to find cheap car insurance” to “how to unlock an iPhone.”

The goal of these content farms is to attract clicks and thereby score advertising dollars.

New Scientist recently conducted a study with Richard McCreadie of the University of Glasgow, UK to explore the issue and better understand if search engines are making progress. The study focuses on 50 search queries that are known to be a target of content farms.

The results of the study indicate that Google and Bing are making progress in targeting and fighting back content farmers. Google has taken the lead in this war with it’s initial Panda update launched back on February 24th 2011. The New Scientist article cautions readers to not expect the war to be over however. With over a billion search queries a day, some companies and individuals will do whatever it takes to vie for the top positions within a search engine’s ranks, including tricking and misleading users to score a cheap, short-term buck or two.