Google Social Search has already been around for a while. Google Social Search project started in 2009. Google used to display a few links to pages created or recommended by your friends and social connections at the bottom of the search results page. This feature automatically obtained data from Google Reader, Google Buzz, Gmail Contacts, Twitter and other sites linked from your Google profile.
Seeing a search result from your friend gives you a more real experience that you may act on by contacting your friend directly about what you are searching for. As most people on the web today make social connections and publish web content in many different ways, including blogs, status updates and tweets, this translates to a public social web of content that has special relevance to each person.
Sometimes a web page is more valuable if it has been recommended by a friend because you probably trust that person. Google uses data from your Google account or publicly available data to generate a list of social connections, but you can’t highlight the people you trust or customize the list.
Google has published a YouTube video about Google Social Search below:
So will Google Social Search improve the relevance of search results? In my personal opinion it depends on your friends. If your friends are active internet users who love to give good information, then you will have good search results.
Then how about the impact for SEO? Until now I couldn’t find the answer. If you find one, please add a comment below and I would love to discuss it with you.
More details: Google Official Post.