Last week we were hit with the Google’s newest push towards integrating social into search. We initially wrote about how Search Plus Your World may affect online marketing strategies, but in the last week I’ve started to witness some interesting effects in the search results that make me wonder. While I have no doubt that tying in social is where search is going, I ask the question if this most recent shift has indeed improved the search experience.

I recently ran the search “how to make an online game” (don’t judge), and for the first time noticed the little blue people icons on the left side of 3 of the search results. These mini smurfs occupied positions 5, 6 and 12 if I count actual result listings, not following the usual 10 results per page structure. What very quickly caught my eye was how irrelevant the titles of these results were to my search query:

• “Official Google Blog: To pitch a perfect game, teach yourself online” – A heart-warming story about how Brian Kingfrey learned to pitch from a YouTube video found Google search. Good read, but not relevant.

• “Official Google Blog: Games in Google+: fun that fits your schedule” – An announcement for the launch of Google games. Fun to play, but I still don’t know how to make them.

• “Can you trust your online merchant? Google hopes a new Google…” – Links to an article on Google’s new Trusted Stores certification. Took me a minute to figure this one out, but then found the word “game” in the article title. Definitely not relevant

And my favorite, coming from a co-workers Google login:

• “Female Online Gamers Have More $e# [INFOGRAPHIC]” – more than male gamers? I believe it.

So why would it matter that the results in the middle and at the bottom of the page are not relevant? There is no doubt that the top three positions are going to get the lions share of the clicks, but that first page real estate is still extremely valuable to those that occupy those spots. When I clicked to the second page of results and found the first few listings had the exact match search phrase in the title, it made me a little sad for them. Two weeks ago those listings were probably sitting pretty on the first page, a place they earned with diligent SEO management (*cough) and now they got bumped off for results that are never going to help me in my quest to build the most perfect gaming experience anyone has ever seen. Can you say…ninja rubber chickens?!

Don’t get me wrong, I am mostly on-board with the search and social integration; I just don’t want to see the user experience decline because of it. Maybe it’s the SEO manager in me, but I also don’t want to see quality, informative and well-optimized content get the boot for a comment my ex made on his Google+ profile about how he played an awesome online game for 10 hours straight last night. And it doesn’t look like I’m the only one with skeptical opinions.

What are your initial thoughts about Search Plus Your World, other than the fact that the name is too long?