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Over the last few years more search engines have caught on to the value of adding a social search component to their marketing mix. What is social search exactly? It’s the idea that people and communities can help improve search relevancy by determining authoritative content to each other and the search engines. Yahoo! has already established a growing social search presence with MyWeb, a place where users can contribute to search by saving, tagging, and sharing out organized, relevant web content.
“The next Evolutionary Step in Search,” according to Google, is Google Co-op. It’s still in its infancy, but with Google Co-op users (experts) have the ability to interact with the search results by specifying which web sites and pages they consider most relevant to a topic, as well as recommend query refinements. The idea is to make search more contextual by allowing users to help define website/web page authority.
With Google Co-op, contributions can be made to current topics, or new topics can be created.
For instance, an automobile mechanic that specializes in a particular type of car can contribute to a topic by annotating web sites and pages she/he feels are most relevant. According to Google there are three ways to contribute to a current topic: