Hello and welcome back to ‘7 Days of Search and Social‘. It was another fun filled week out in the trenches last week. Some (big?) news from Google. More drama. But we avoid that for the most part right? I hope this week is going well and your kicking a$$ and taking SERPs!

On with the news….

Lead Story

Google Gets Social, again…

While there was a few interesting tidbits, including Forbes being the latest caught in the paid link crackdown, I decided this one was more important. For those that missed it, Google updated it’s social search to be included into the regular results, as opposed to being displayed at the bottom as it was in the past.

Here’s some reading;

Why is this a more important story than the paid links stuff? Simple, because this is an important evolution. I’ve been hard on real time and social search since it’s inception because it just wasn’t making sense. This change though has an important element; it can cause re-ranking of results.

This is a form of personalization beyond search and surfing history that we need to factor into our thinking. In truth, I didn’t see this one coming. This isn’t SideWiki. This isn’t SearchWiki. This isn’t Google Buzz. Those one’s are next to useless. This one has legs.

More soon….

Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Going Vertical – Videos – Tools – Patents –

Talk of the Town

Search Geeks Speak – last week on the SGS podcast we had a some great link builders on in the form of; Debra Mastaler, Garrett French and Wil Reynolds. Given the people on board, it goes without saying that it rocked!

Don’t Lie To Google In A Google Help Forum – was a classic Google forums thread brought to light via Search Engine Roundtable. Not only is it dumb to try and fool Google, but that company is just HILARIOUS. Nice find Barry!

The Content Marketing Process Explained – some interesting assessments and ideas on content programs via SEP.

Connections, Relations and Search: What Your Social Graph Says About You – since we’re on the topic of social graphs this week, I found a nice post over on Level 343. If you’re still trying to get your head around it, it’s worth a read.

How Dare You Tell Me To NoFollow My Sponsored Links – speaking of Barry, I was also happy to see this post defending his choice to sell advertising on Search Engine Roundtable. I do the same. Why? Because I am not selling PageRank, I am selling traffic, prominence etc.

JCPenney Responds to NYT and Google – while we’ve stayed away from the drama, for the most part, this response was at least interesting. Now we can lay this one to rest.

Study Asks, Can You Trust Google’s Personalized Search Results?– WOW. What a find. I really enjoyed this and while I haven’t looked into the moethodology yet, there’s some very interesting goodies in here.

The Next Generation of Ranking Signals – while we tend to give the Moz a hard time now and again, this post from Rand is fairly in-line with my own thoughts (over the years) on where we might be headed. A worthy addition.

Somewhere at MountainView – ok, we all need a good laugh now and again, right? Go. Read. Laugh.

Are Manual Solutions The Answer To Content Farms? – was my post on Search Engine Land last week. I was musing about what the real solution for thin content might be. I also talked to Blekko and others; give it a read.

Turn Stolen Copy Lemons Into Link Lemonade – Debra, via The Link Spiel, was dealing with scrapers and how you can not only identify them, but also how you might be able to turn the situation into your advantage.