New In Google SERPS; "View And Manage Your Web History"

....new in Google serps.....

[sandpetra]

Not sure what it means yet but anyone else spotted it?

Do a search when logged in and you should see an option to View And Manage Your Web History at the top right....

[mattglet]

I'm seeing it. I figured this would be coming sooner or later.

Today, we're pleased to announce the launch of Web History, a new feature for Google Account users that makes it easy to view and search across the pages you've visited. If you remember seeing something online, you'll be able to find it faster and from any computer with Web History. Web History lets you look back in time, revisit the sites you've browsed, and search over the full text of pages you've seen. It's your slice of the web, at your fingertips.

Check out Google's blog post [googleblog.blogspot.com] about it.

[google.com...]

[Bewenched]

Just curious, but do you think users are being shown results based on what their past browsing history is instead of what is possibly fresher or better results?

Example... you've searching for Pontiac cars, your son needs to research the Pontiac Indians. Could his results be skewed by what you searched for on the same computer?

(sorry to have to use examples, but I just couldn't come up with a good widget example without alot more coffee this morning)

[vincevincevince]

Interesting that you must enable the PageRank display on the Google Toolbar for this to work. I'm wondering what the relevance of PageRank is, of if they are just pushing this through the same privacy terms which you have to agree to for PageRank display.

[oneguy]

You can also manage your web activity and remove items from your web history at any time.

If I remove items from my web history, does that mean they are only removed from my view?

Or are they also removed from the view of whomever might buy my web history later?

[jakegotmail]

another reason to stay logged out of your gmail account at all times...

[Adam_Lasnik]

Vincevincevince, it's not about PageRank. Rather, it's related to the same fact: our servers understandably have to be able to see what pages you access on the Web (to either check on the PageRank for you OR add the page to your Web history). And this functionality is opt-in. If the PageRank feature is turned off (which it is by default), then our servers cannot see what pages you view off of the Google network.

Oneguy, you might want to read our privacy policy [google.com].

[bumpaw]

Thanks Adam for that nice straight forward explanation.

[cabbie]

Googles knows their serps are in such disarray and in such a flux that people searching a term are unlikely to find the same results twice.Thus.

[SEOPTI]

Don't sell your soul to Google and install this nonsense.

[edited by: SEOPTI at 1:35 am (utc) on April 25, 2007]

[matimer]

another reason to stay logged out of your gmail account at all times...

i think you mean another reason not to use gmail... last thing I read was that google has graciously decided to only associate your web searches with your account for 2 years...

thanks oh mighty google

[idolw]

ok. so I understand that now I should put all my pages into the history and remove everyting else.
is that right, Adam?

[sunny_kat]

I believe it would be a kind of Google Cache which enables users to maintain their search history and the website's they visited while any session.

[stakaman]

Only two years of search history is enough to know: who you are, what you think, what you buy, who you read, what you know, where you go, what job you do, roughly how much you earn. Combine that with Gmail and you have more info on: who you date, who are your friends, your secrets, wishes, dreams....

Combine all that and you get a very powerful advertising capability.

Privacy concerns are just starting to build up for Google.

[gehrlekrona]

Well, well, well. Another smart trick of Google to collect privacy data from you volontarly.
Why would you ever want to save ANYTHING anout your web surfing on their servers? Why would GOOGLE want you to store it there? What could it be used to and for? Selling it to advertisers?
How is search going to be affected by it? Is SEO going to be obsolete? How are they going to show results? Related data? " You searched for blowfish, and we found all these related searches with blow-job, blow-up......"
Are they going to use it for, lets say, measuring the sites people visit, how long they stayed, did they go shopping, interests?
I am SURE I will NOT use it, but I guess there's a lot of ignorant people who will use it :(