Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Today we're helping people get better search results by extending Personalized Search to signed-out users worldwide
That's a staggering statement meaning that every computer accessing Google is now being personalized, signed in or not, so any desktop, laptop or kiosk will start tracking everything everyone does and you won't be able to access the same search results from any two machines.
The possible impact to all is staggering.
This will ensure that if you ever accidentally use Google the data they have on you will tell them that you are looking for better results that have not been personalised.
Cheers
Sid
PS I did a rather nice logo with 2 toilet seats. Where do I submit this for consideration to Google?
Opera accepts everything and is used for a handful of trusted sites.
The decline and fall of Google....look out people, here comes BING.
I am sure, new kinds on block are ready to target bing ?
or bing originated sites.
Not commenting more.. ;)
Mere on contradiction layed by a majority of webmasters on webmasterworld or a another hundreds of webmaster related sites ?
Its easy to target 1000+ sites in order to gain supremacy..
does the world ends here ?
Gorg and the likes of its ilk all Blocked, only a handful of sites Allowed permanently incl. WebmasterWorld all the rest > delete when browser closes. Equally all G related trackers on 3rd party sites blocked for quite some time now (OK, you can all frown at me now)
Coincidence or not search results are much better than they used to be over the past year or so. No more Results 1 - 10 of about 'several million' of which the first 3-4 or more pages are all junk but Results 1 - 10 of about of 'a few hundred thousand' with good results from page one.
1. For SEO's, SERP-1 (Positions 1-10) represent too much of a whirlwind of unpredictable results.
2. SEO's may instead focus on ranking high until Positions 11-20 for any of their organic campaigns. Any promotion of a url above Position-11 (i.e, to positions 1-10) would determined by a bundle of factors that are totally in the realm of individual surfing habits.
3. SEO's may suggest their customers to use virgin machines (where none of the google services are ever used) to discover true Google rankings of their websites. On the flip side, SEO's may carve such reports out of their own systems and share the same with customers in periodic performance reports.
What say?
Targeting ppc ads effectively is all about knowledge and this is probably what really interests Google. If they can get a better profile of the searcher, the odds of a ppc click is much better. If advertisers allow them some slack on where they can put their ppc ads, then google can really start to target ads in an intelligent way, rather than just the search phrase.
PS. I have only scan read this thread, apologies if the above has already been said!
"Personalized Search" is "Behavioral Targeted Advertising" in a new set of clothes. Google did not want to face the same fight that Phrom and others have.
it's about targeted traffic and conversions.
Adwords had for us gone way over what our conversion rate could sustain anyway even with some major #1 organic slots. We have therefore already been working of trying to improve our conversion rate by making sites more compelling, easier to get to the forms that convert and easier forms for users. We have for some time seen this as our biggest opportunity as our niche has become ever more competitive for position in organic and Adwords. Personalised search has confirmed this together with the need to cut Google out of our loop. Or at least finding other ways to grow traffic independent of both paid and organic listings on Google.
As well as making our sites more user friendly we are focusing getting users to return, retaining users when they are on a site, communicating with them off web. This is all stuff we should have been doing more of anyway it was just easier in the past to get traffic through SEO. Now that traffic is precious and we want to look after it well once we get it into somewhere that we control.
Cheers
Sid
"Personalized Search" is "Behavioral Targeted Advertising" in a new set of clothes. Google did not want to face the same fight that Phrom and others have.
Since Google sold its soul and incorporated ads every change they have made seems to be to benefit Google to the detriment of users. Basically they have got a "how much can we get away with" attitude to their users. They are squeezing the teets of their cash cow so hard they are close to pulling them off.
Cheers
Sid
I am stunned though that Google can do something like this without any backlash from privacy advocates. I cannot see them getting away with it in Europe. They will get away with it in the US because they are BIG business and BIG business can do what they like unless of course you are Microsoft and everybody hates you but that's another story. Unless Google stops being the darling of Wall Street they can do what they like and they do
I brought up the Google privacy issue a couple of years ago with our local linux group. Nobody really cared - and those folks are the types that would care. I just raised the subject again with them surrounding the Google DNS and this time they did care - a lot.
It seems like it just takes a while to sink in. And concerns need to start at the grassroots level.
It seems like it just takes a while to sink in. And concerns need to start at the grassroots level.
That is exactly what needs to happen.
Talk to people about SERPS and their eyes glaze over.
Tell them that Google is tracking and logging every thing they do on the Internet and they suddenly listen.
My daughter is an avid Googler, or was. I tested the waters with her and told her about Google’s new personalized serps and how they are now tracking every thing you do. She switched her homepage to Bing.
That is what needs to happen. Tell your friends, neighbor, clients, etc. anybody who will listen and before you know it the mainstream media will pick up on it and run with it.
Then sit back and watch their share of the market dwindle because they are just too egotistical in the plex to admit a mistake.
If however you just sit back and do nothing other than complain in forums full of webmasters, nothing is going to happen.
That is what needs to happen. Tell your friends, neighbor, clients, etc. anybody who will listen and before you know it the mainstream media will pick up on it and run with it.
If however you just sit back and do nothing other than complain in forums full of webmasters, nothing is going to happen.
Yep.
And as a free bonus make them switch to Firefox and show them how to disable all the nasty ads and tracking scripts from MV (Adsense, Doubleclick, Analytics). Not only will their browsing experience be much better (faster, less cluttered pages), they also will have the good feeling of being less trackable.
I say it again: we as webmasters have still a significant portion of the eyeballs, through our content (something that Google does not have). WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS on our sites, in our blogs, articles, tweets, and on Facebook.
Marissa Mayer: An omnivorous Google is coming [telegraph.co.uk]
But it is the personalisation of search where Mayer sees the real future of Google’s powerful engine. “Although we search the web right now, what we really want to do is search it as each individual user sees the web. We want Google to be the most accurate reference tool which allows people to search the web and each have an individual experience,” she says.Mayer thinks the key will be when Google can include people’s friends’ personal updates from social networks such as Facebook in search and serve these results personally to the correct people. Right now Google can only include the updates and information from these networks if the users’ privacy settings are ‘public’. According to Mayer – the ideal will be to get access to your friend’s updates in search: “Understanding the social network structure and the permission rules around social networks status updates when they are not public – will really empower us in terms of search.”
However, with the increased personalisation of search, come a whole set of major privacy issues. The recent personalisation of search for all, not just those logged into the engine, means Google will serve everyone customised results based on people’s previous searches – information it stores for up to 180 days – unless the user opts out. But with many people not even realising how search is changing, or that they now need to opt out of something – what data does Google have and what assurances are there that it won’t disclose this information to third parties.
Mayer grows defensive when the privacy issue is raised. “Because personalised search is cookie based, there is no personally identifiable information. All we know is that a search came from a certain computer – but nothing about the users’ identity.
With all the information Gorg collects via their other "offerings" how long would it take most of us to string together the user's identity of that certain computer ?
but then translated those sites in full when you clicked through.”
The ultimate prize for Mayer is intuitive search. She wants Google to be capable of presenting information to users before they even know what they're looking for.
Gorg certainly has a clear understanding of the herd mentality of most people.... don't think, just follow the lead bull, eh sorry ... Gorg
PS : mods, if I quoted too much of this article, please delete. Thank you.
With all the information Gorg collects via their other "offerings" how long would it take most of us to string together the user's identity of that certain computer ?
Anyone have any doubts that Google assumes your content is theirs to do with as they want?
None whatsoever and since translating your website with software is the worst you can do to it I have G translate banned more than a year ago.
What I want people to find in a language other than English I translate myself (I'm fluent in 5 languages), else there are no doubt pages that cover the same content in the visitor's language on other sites. Live and let live.
but then translated those sites in full when you clicked through
This is great! Not only will you be able to wade through thousands of results coming from the new spAmOL, Demand Media, etc etc, they'll add in lots of machine-translated nonsense from all around the world. This is just awesome! I can't wait for the new omnivorous Google - after all, as everybody knows, all your base are belong to us!
Average users won't know immediately the screwball, bedroom-peeping philosophy behind Google trashing its own serps, but as the results become more and more limited, people will care... though they won't do much about it except complain.
Amongst other things such as not logging IPs it has an option to use SSL, which is a good idea if you are concerned with ISPs intercepting your traffic (illegal in Europe but yet another UK ISP is trying it on).
Since it's a meta-enging, aggregating data from several engines including google, one has to ask: does startpage/ixquick get personalized results from google? Does it get results based on world-wide searches?
Actually I doubt it, since they probably do not accept cookies, but it would be a laugh, wouldn't it? :)
I like cookies that make my browsing experience easier and better. I like the fact that I don't have to log into Webmasterworld each time I visit, I don't mind that some shopping trolleys store bits of data about what is in my basket and what the running total is, but I do mind that some sites are using them to track me long term for their own ends.
A browser app could allow us to set up more specific filters on cookies with a restrictive set of prefs as standard. A browser app could for example allow cookies to be set but restrict when the server is allowed to read them. It could have pattern match filters that prevented what look like unique IDs from being set and read. Browsers could and in my opinion should, give us back much more control. Google thinks it owns us, in fact the browser comes between us and Google and the browser could take back control.
Cheers
Sid
I would like to be able to stop all domains setting what look like a unique ID. Could be done using regex.
Cheers
Sid
people will care... though they won't do much about it except complain.
I think your wrong. After all, even the most PC challenged person can figure out how to use another search engine and that is what is going to happen. Once the SERPS are returning results that people are not looking for but what Google thinks they want, they will leave.
This is a great example of how being "to smart" is going to cause Google to get knocked off their perch. All you have to do is read the dribble coming out of the mouthpieces at Google to see the writing on the wall.
Google has way to many smart people with no real concept of reality. They live in a Google world and think that they will make all our decisions for us.
My Gorg test with my daugher has bore fruit. She was able to get her computer class to switch all the PCs home page to Bing. That is how a movement starts. One person at a time.
Sorry Gorg, but I for one will not be assimilated into you thinking for me.
That is how a movement starts. One person at a time.
Yep. +1
Another interesting aspect is that things can go badly wrong by just tiny deviations from the original setup/plan. Look up "chaos theory" in your favorite search engine.
Or go and watch "Jurassic Park" again. The similarities are striking: a stunning amusement park, tons of money for research and execution, world domination (in its niche) is just a matter of time. Yet things go terribly terribly wrong, and quickly, with an outcome that the business owners did not foresee in their wildest dreams.
Isn't it about time that browsers gave us more control over cookies?
You can do this in Opera for it to remember by accepting or refusing the cookie when visiting a new site.
