Rand Fishkin posted an interesting case on The Daily SEO Blog, where someone in his social media network landed on page 1 for an article on ‘cupcake madness’ on a website unrelated to the topic. This article disappeared from his search results when he logged out of his Google account. I wasn’t able to replicate this same type of result with my own social media contacts, however.

You can view your own list of social media connections referenced by Google here. I found my list a little strange. It’s missing some of my closest contacts and it includes ‘connections to your connections’ i.e. people with whom you have never actually connected and probably have no idea who they are. It also details how you are connected with each person on the list.

While I don’t have a problem with the option of finding information that’s related to my social media connections, I’d prefer a more transparent system. I see Google as a librarian that should be relied on to provide objective information. Suggestions based on feedback from others is always welcome, if I know where it’s coming from and I have the option to kindly decline.

To the extent that I wasn’t able to see differences in my own search results based on logging in and out of my Google account, I wonder how deeply implemented this strategy is and how integrated it is with other Google indicators such as social authority. It would also seem, as I pointed out above, that Google’s list of our individual social media connections seems to be a work in progress.