Google changes the search game - this is a VERY big deal

Whether this freaks you out, makes you excited or passes you by will depend on how interested you are in the internet.

More particularly, how interested you are in SEO, traffic and how to get people to come to any website that you have.

I wasn't sure whether to post this as many musicians will think that it won't affect them. Their website isn't something that they spend time optimising and trying to ensure that it ranks in Google. Fair enough - most don't.

But, this is going to affect everyone and every website. Perhaps for the better, but when your life revolves around getting traffic to a website (as does mine) this is a massive change.

So, what is it?

Yesterday Google added 'personal search' to their search results.

This means that from now on whenever you search for anything Google will use what it knows about you and what you have on the web (for now, stuff you have in Google's apps like G+, Picasa etc) to add to your results.

They say:

"Search is pretty amazing at finding that one needle in a haystack of billions of Web pages, images, videos, news and much more," 

"But clearly, that isn't enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the Web, the people you know and things they've shared with you, as well as the people you don't know but might want to ... all from one search box."

The company added: "Search is simply better with your world in it."

What will this mean for your artist website? Who knows until it starts to pan out and we see the effects but it might make more people come to your site as they see that their friends have mentioned you on G+ or have taken photos at a gig.

As someone who spends time trying to make websites rank better in search results it's another thing to learn and work out!

One things for sure, Google are pushing hard to make 'social search' improve the search experience and therefore being part of their social network as an individual and as a band (with a brand page, or in our case, band page) isn't really an option, it's a 'must-do'.

Read Google's own blog on this here.

And this article on CNN is great too.

Here's the video: