Google Inc. will provide more personalized search results for users by tapping content from its Google+ service, including photos, news and comments that are posted on the social network.
A new service called Search, Plus Your World will display more content for users who log into Google, providing access to items they may have put on Google+ or from friends’ posts, said Amit Singhal, who focuses on improving information retrieval at the Mountain View, Calif.-based company. If someone searches for a dog, for instance, pictures of friends’ dogs might show up first in the search results.
Google, the world’s biggest search engine, aims to ward off competition from Microsoft Corp.’s Bing and Facebook Inc. Last year, Bing began displaying Facebook data, such as restaurants, brands and links friends have recommended, in its search results. Facebook has more than 800 million members, compared with more than 40 million for Google+ as of October.
Google’s search service doesn’t include content from Facebook or microblogging service Twitter Inc. The changes under the new Google service could make finding Twitter posts on news events more difficult, San Francisco-based Twitter said.
Facebook, based in Menlo Park, Calif., declined to comment on the new search service.
