As I am sure that you have seen by now, Google have to the dismay of Twitter, introduced a new element of search. They have called it “Google Search plus Your World” long winded I know, maybe Search+ would have been better but who am I to question the almighty overlords of the web?

But what does this actually mean for you? Basically it means that you are going to get results from Google+ within your search, these will be split between personal results from people in your circles and also just general results from Google+.

Google have been very clever with this and have made it an opt-out system and as we all know, most people will not bother changing it or won’t even know how. As the adoption of Google+ increases and with an estimated 400 million users by the end of the year this social media powerhouse will be influencing SERPs for a long time yet.

But should we accept the inevitable and adopt Google+ into our SEO strategies? My simple answer to that would be a resounding yes! There is little point in resisting the changes that Google implement just because we don’t like them. You would not keep your pre-Panda strategy out of principle so it is time that we welcomed this strange social media hybrid into our lives and made the most of it!

Source: Threeten10.com

Is what Google are doing moral? Well this is the question that has really been raised by companies like Twitter. Twitter are not included under the title “Your World” and they claim that this new move has reduced their visibility, now we get into a very complicated and muddled part of this story.

Twitter uses NoFollow tags for all its links and this is Google’s reasoning for their low rankings within Google. But what does NoFollow actually mean, well, this is a hot topic at the moment and there are differing opinions. Some prominent members of the SEO community such as Will Critchlow have said that NoFollow does not mean not indexed it just means that no trust is passed on from the host.

@mattcutts thanks – I understand (tho always described nofo as “no trust passed” rather than “can’t be crawled”). But many non-SEOs confused

— Will Critchlow (@willcritchlow) January 13, 2012

It is interesting to see how this will play out and may actually be a blessing for SEOs as there may finally be a definitive answer to the value of a NoFollow link.

Do you use Google+ for your clients and if not is it something that you would consider? Tell us in the comments.