Google have recently announced that they have introduced hashtag searches into their search engine results, meaning that you can Google ‘#xfactor’ and see a list of results from Google+ on the right side of the SERP. This is great because there is currently a lot of space being wasted for informational search enquiries, as the below image shows, space that could be used to provide the searcher with more information about X Factor, information we know that searcher definitely needs…
Google has found plenty of ways of utilising empty space in the search engine results of late; Google Maps and Google Carousel for example. The latest integration gives businesses more impetus to ensure that they are active on Google+ as you can rest assured that we will all be searching using hashtags (not just via Twitter) if the results provided are of use to our needs.
There has been no word of a UK release of this feature, in fact come to think of it, we actually don’t have Google Carousel in the UK either and that was announced a while ago… But with any luck Google will have it released in the UK before Christmas so I can search ‘#xfactor’ in time for the final and have my festive dreams come true.
Anthony
