Social Search Social search has been a much talked about phrase in the internet marketing world for quite some time now. While it was supposed to pose a serious threat to traditional algorithm based search, social search has seen itself in a state of continuous evolution. It might take some more time for the challenge to be realized but still social search holds immense promise for improving our information gathering activities on the web. Let’s have a closer look at what social search is all about.

What is Social Search?

Wikipedia says, “Social search is a type of web search method that determines the relevance of search results by considering the interactions or contributions of users.” Just to make it simple, social search returns you personalized search results based on the user’s social network. This user-based approach is in sharp contrast to the traditional machine-based approach. Social search has many influencers, from simple shared bookmarks or tagging of content with descriptive labels to more complex ones that combine human intelligence with computer algorithms.

Looking Back

Social search as a concept is not really new. Right from the early days of the internet, even before the emergence of the first search engines, it has been in existence. Those were the days when people relied on pages with links to their favorite sites. One of the first such pages was created by the inventor of World Wide Web, Tim Berners Lee. And then Yahoo, one of the first directory web sites, was created by a team of human editors who surfed the web and wrote up brief descriptions of the sites they found. Some other classic examples are The Open Directory Project, the Librarians’ Index of the Internet  which were created by people and have been around since the early days of the web.

Social Search Engines

Today people are flocking to social networking and book marking websites. These sites are the ideal launching pad for social search. There is a growing interest in how social groups can influence and potentially enhance the ability of algorithms to find meaningful data for end users and it’s no surprise that companies have sprouted with their focus on ranking search results according to one’s social graph on social networks. In 2008 start-ups like Mahalo, Wikia Search,Scour, Baynote, Delver and OneRiot have entered the social search space.

Social Search Pros

Social search engines have potential benefits deriving from the human input qualities of social search. Some of these include:

  • Relatively free from link spam as there is less reliance on link structure of webpages
  • More relevant search results as each result has been selected by users
  • The user gets more current results
  • The user gets his precise perspective reflected in the results
  • The human judgment that social search uses is more accurate than computer’s ability to analyze a webpage

Social Search Cons

Despite the obvious benefits social search has some glaring defects too. As said earlier social search hinges heavily on human judgment. But the web today is growing at a pace which humans simply cannot match and this means there will be a lot of content that would remain unnoticed and hidden from the user. Also the tagging method through which the search works is not the ideal way of organizing web data. There is also the risk of spam because users have the freedom to directly add results to a social search engine which can be misused.  We all know the way some SEO’s behave!

One final element that some people will have a problem with is the lack of privacy that social search includes.  In order to learn about your own habits, search engines need to learn about your likes and dislikes and follow the websites you visit.  My opinion?  So be it.  I seriously doubt Google, Yahoo! and MSN care about each individual enough for it to matter.  The key is the collective research gained.   It is much like the mistrust many had 10 years ago in purchasing products online.  It isn’t really an issue now is it?

What’s Next?

Social search, the way it’s evolving integrates both automated software as well as human judgment regarding the nature of web content. In the future, it’s likely that a combination of algorithmic search and the various types of social search systems will work in tandem to satisfy a wide variety of information. And with support coming from giants and minnows alike in the webscape the future looks all rosy for social search.  Remember – all search engines want to do is offer the user the most relevant search to their own personal preferences.  Given this – social search and personalization are here to stay.

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