The search giant realised that Facebook's "Like" button allowed Facebook access to key data concerning a user's preferences online. By Liking and +1'ing, users are sending messages not only to their peers but also to the companies (read: search engines and social networks) who are providing the service.
Whilst Google's Pagerank algorithm might take into account aspects like links between sites, the actual content on the site and how often it's been engaged with - it lacks in the more "human" areas of social preference and appreciation. With "Like" - Facebook has been able to see what users are recommending to each other and this is sure to be a gainful, crowdsourced insight when it comes to advertising.
Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team, put it well.
"The primary benefit is that search gets better. It gets better in the user interface immediately, and we'll look at it as a potential signal to improve search quality as well. I find social search extremely useful, especially with the recent updates. This change continues the evolution of social search, and it's a natural progression to improve the search experience."
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