Google has expanded its social search results to more countries. Social Search works by ranking higher search results which come from friends and contacts across the social web.
For example, if you search for information on the Intercity 125 and your friend has written a blog about it then their blog will show high up in your results, alongside a little picture of them to help you identify it’s a social search result you are looking at. A similar thing happens for links that your friends have shared on-line (such as in a tweet).
Google works out who your online friends are by analysing your iGoogle profile (and the results only work if you are logged in), as well as your wider social networking connections. Looking at your Google Dashboard will reveal what information Google is using.
If Social Search becomes a big success then getting people to share links on social networks will become as important as SEO After all, you may have better SEO than you competitors, but if my friends have shared their link, and not your’s, then I’ll see their website higher up my search results.
Here is a typically nice Google video explaining how Social Search works: