Google__ The Missing Manual - Kevin Purdy [62]
Searching Google+
IT’S NO SURPRISE THAT the search bar is a prominent part of every Google+ page (Google made its name as a search engine, after all). The search bar is at the top of every page, with “Search Google+” written inside.
As you know, if you go to Google.com and enter a search term, you’ll get results from all over the Internet. The Google+ search bar, on the other hand, scours only Google+. You’ll get results that are a mixture of things specific to your Google+ account, and the wider world of things people have posted publicly on the site. Simply click in the box, start typing, and you’ll see how that works. You don’t even have to hit Enter (Return on a Mac) to see what it finds—even if you just type one letter, Google+ will display a drop-down list with a bunch of suggestions.
Since Google+ is all about connections between people, it guesses that you might be looking for people in your circles, so it puts people in your circles whose names contain the letter you typed near the top of the list. Click any of these folks and you’ll arrive at their profile page. This is a much easier way to see what someone has been posting about than heading into your Circles page and finding them there.
Keep typing, and the results change to reflect what you add. Type great, for example, and since it’s unlikely that any of your friends are named Great, the search results include a host of organizations whose names have “great” in them.
What you’re really looking for, though, is great coffee (aren’t you always?). Enter that whole phrase, and Google+ runs out of people and organizations whose names match what you’ve typed, so it provides related search terms instead: “great coffee table books,” “great coffee makers,” “great coffee coupon,” and so on. If one of those phrases if what you want, click it to search Google+ for it.
But you’re after plain ol’ great coffee: people who’ve mentioned finding great coffee in a Google+ post, people whose profiles indicate that they love great coffee, maybe even news stories people have shared about great coffee. To search for exactly what you’ve typed, simply hit Enter (Return on a Mac) or click the first item in the drop-down list (Search Google+ for “[whatever you typed]”).
NOTE
The search results shown in this chapter will almost certainly look different than the ones you’ll get if you search for the same terms because you’re connected to different people and will perform the search at different times. Also, search is one of the more rapidly-changing features of Google+.
Google+ brings up your search results, which are tailored to your account. In the “great coffee” search example previously, the top result is a post from Gina Trapani. Why is that? Because she’s in one of the searcher’s circles, and because of the way the search is filtered. The following sections explain the various filter settings.
NOTE
If there are Google+ members who match your search terms, you’ll see a small grid of their profile pictures and names at the top of your search results, along with a “View all” link to see more folks who match. For example, do a search for “cheese” and you’ll see results that include everyone whose name includes that word, as shown in the following illustration.
The Four Types of Google+ Search Results
When you perform a Google+ search, the results page that appears gives you a few ways to whittle down your results. In the gray bar below your search term are four categories:
Everything. Google+ selects this category automatically. (You can tell which category is selected because its name is written in gray; the other categories’ names are in blue to indicate you can click them to switch to them). When it’s selected, the results you see are a compilation of posts, Google+ members, and results from sparks (explained in a sec).
People. Click this category to see a list of people using Google+ who