Earlier this year, Google released hashtags into the Google+ stream for more efficient categorization of posts. Now, the company has announced that it will allow you to narrow down that content by running Google Searches on those hashtags. Given the heavy integration of Google+ into nearly every Google product these days, it only makes sense that Google+ hashtags would be incorporated into the 5-billion-query-per-day Google search engine.

People will now have the option to search any number of hashtagged topics (e.g. #iPhone) and receive relevant Google+ posts displayed in the right sidebar. All Google+ links will be active and users can quickly scroll through to see the timestamp on each, along with the number of +1's and comments received. The one caveat is that you won't be able to actually interact with posts by +1'ing and commenting from the search results page.

Google is also hoping to preempt anti-competition claims by providing links underneath the Google+ posts so that users can find relevant results on other social networks as well. So athough Facebook and Twitter posts are not highlighted in the sidebar, the results are still generated all in one place and are just a click away. It’s not clear at this point whether other social networks (Instagram, Vine, etc.) will be added.