ReadWriteWeb

Google and Twitter couldn't make a deal to renew their real-time search partnership, and now Google+ is plowing ahead on its own. A new Google+ feature makes searches on the network more timely, social and shareable. Google+ users can now post updates to their streams directly from search results.

If you search for a topic or hashtag, such as "SOPA," a post box at the top promps the user to "join the discussion." Posts from this box include the note "Shared from the Google+ SOPA stream." The topic name links back to the search results page.

Google launched a major new feature this week called Google Search Plus Your World and many people are incredibly upset about it. The feature presents search results from your contacts on Google's social network, Google+, and the things they've shared. It's clutter, critics say, it's unfair, it's a violation of a sacred contract between users and Google.

Be that as it may, the feature can also be pretty awesome. Below I've listed 5 examples of search queries that were fabulously improved by the availability of the new search results. What do they have in common? They surface timely and opinionated content, shared by people I know and trust. Search super-expert Danny Sullivan has shown with a long list of examples that some queries suffer at the hands of the new feature. I'd like to offer some counter-examples.

Google has "shipped the Google part" of Google+, and everything went better than expected. Today, Google launches Personal Results, Profiles in Search, and People and Pages, new features of its core search product that mark the real beginning of Google's social search era. Google search now has two modes: global and personalized. Personal search results show content from your Google+ network, and global search results appear as though you're logged out of Google+.

If you're like me, you've dreaded this day. Just last week, I wrote that Google+ was going to mess up the Internet by turning Web search into a popularity contest. But the new Google unveiled today leaves the user in control. "Search, plus Your World," Google has called it. It's two kinds of search, and they're separate. If you don't want Google+-flavored results, just switch to global mode. You can even turn off personalized search altogether.

Wednesday in ReadWriteWeb, Jon Mitchell posted a very pointed opinion on how Google's social network, Google+, is leading to gradual, though noticeable, adjustments in how all of Google's services work. In his article, Jon provided evidence that Google search results appear to favor recommendations on Google+ that link to an article that meets the search criteria, over a direct link to the article itself.

Writes Jon, "Google used to be about organizing the world's information. It was a service to the entire Web. But this social tangent is changing that. It's turning the Web into a Google+ popularity contest." However, he also writes that other Google users in his Google+ circles tell him they get different results.

Google's monthly search improvement digest is a whopper this month, describing 30 highlighted changes to the way Google search works. This month, Google has started adding code names to make the changes easier to remember and follow.

The tweaks are a little bit scattered, affecting all different aspects of Google's search returns. Most of them affect the actual presentation of results. A couple affect the way results are ranked. There are two new kinds of results for entertainment-related searches. And there are a few back-end improvements and adjustments affecting site administrators.

Maybe there is a chance for Android competitors to Apple's Siri voice-powered search. The first Siri clone was the cleverly-named anagram Iris and has been something of an amusing joke since it launched shortly after Siri was announced. The builders behind Iris, India-based development studio Dexetera, have made a partnership that will give Iris Siri-like capabilities without directly copying Apple's approach.

Dexetera announced today that it is tying Iris into the database for question-and-answer website ChaCha. While ChaCha may not be the top of the line when it comes to answers on the Internet, Dexetera making partnerships is a good first step towards lending the app some legitimacy.

You're more likely to use your smart phone to search for information about sexually transmitted diseases and mental health issues, but searches on serious conditions like diabetes and cancer are still coming from desktop and laptop computers.

Those were among the findings in a study released by Healthline Networks for the top searches on its health information site in 2011. Chlamydia was the number one query for mobile device users, while cancer was the top search from desktops and laptops.

Google.com is still one of the cleanest, calmest sites on the Web. At least, it is before you start typing. At this point, you don't even have to hit enter before the page starts filling up with noise. Google has been hard at work on its core product this year. The changes have affected search quality in uneven ways.

This year, Google's Panda updates seemed careful and prudent, punishing sites who game the system for better page rank. This was also the year of social SEO, in which the +1 button began to affect search results. Google is also moving away from historical results and toward real-time search. Is Google still as good as it used to be at finding what we're looking for?

As the go-to place for finding anything on the Web, Google has unique insight into the spirit of the times. The trending Google searches of the year are a glimpse into what's on our minds. For the past 10 years, it has published a year-end Zeitgeist report on the major search trends around the world. Zeitgeist 2011 was released today.

It was a weird year. Perhaps it's not surprising that, of all the grim and tumultuous events that transpired this year, the top Google searches were mostly frivolous. The number one trending search was Rebecca Black. But this year's Zeitgeist site is dynamic, detailed and easy to explore. Drilling down by region reveals some timely insights into what interested the wired world in 2011.

As the year winds down, Google has released some introspective blog posts about its changing nature. Today, it recapped the evolution of search in six minutes, describing the evolution of Google's core product from its breakout PageRank algorithm to its new real-time, local and social directions. It also published an illuminating timeline of the major changes to Google search.

Last week, Google fellow Amit Singhal, who appears in today's video, published some thoughts on personalization, which has been Google's most publicized and controversial change to its core product. Google's in a thoughtful mood about its recent changes. As Vic Gundotra made clear at Web 2.0 this fall, the company's whole identity is shifting. Here are four major trends in how Google search has evolved over time.