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.
Every webmaster should be removing any Google search boxes, monetization, etc from their sites immediately
easy to say, isn't it. don't you see that almost every webmaster became a webmaster through Google search boxes and gained monetization experience.
I personally am against this personalized search of GORG but that doesn't mean it's impossible to disable it for good. one simple and effective way is to use Linux+Konqourer.
Take the recent public DNS example, on here it was met with general suspicion. Elsewhere it was this really cool new tool to use.
Any idea that this will be met with a negative reaction by the mainstream Internet user seems to suffer from a bit of SEO tunnel vision.
This is just the beginning. Webmasters typically have a way to communicate with their (often main stream) users. They write blogs. They link to interesting and concerning stuff all the time. Looking at the reaction on this forum, this might be the final drop that was needed...
OTOH, you are right - if noone is writing about this, then noone will notice.
if someone searches for 'widgets' today, and starts using the top site regularly, then presumably that site will weight highly in his personalised search. if a new site then makes a stab at the top spot, he might never see it, because his personalised search is still weighting the one he used in the past.
the serps are going to lock in sites that you've already interacted with.
it's like flipping open the yellow pages, only to have it fall on the same well-worn page everytime.
I was reviewing stats this morning for my volunteer sites and smaller clients and was struck with all of the traffic coming from Google. In a large sense, in many subject areas, Google is the web.
What this is going to mean:
1) Ads on Google search will have more value to the marketer. If you are buying ads on Google now, what you are paying for those ads got much more "reasonable."
2) Ads on Google will have more value for the consumer. Ads on the search engine will be where you see something different, more than ever.
3) SEO is a new game.
4) Alternative search engines (Yahoo, Bing and Ask) have got to be thrilled with this announcement. If you've been disturbed (as many here are) with the power Google has over your market--this could be a break.
5) Despite the point made in #4, this will make Google more money. And, they are, after all, a business.
Yeah, it's new and different. Change is hard. The consumer is going to have to adjust and they are awful at "adjusting." People are a creature of habit. (Irony alert: Just below this thread on the WW front page is a thread on how webmasters forced themselves to use Bing for several weeks. That says a lot. Now you have a reason to visit Bing and Yahoo search.)
All in all, it's going to be difficult to adjust, but in the long term it's good for the web and for Google.
Now you WWers have something to say to your non-geek friends that they really, really need to hear. But, they'll still think you're a boring geek, so don't get exciting about becoming interesting and popular.
Google sometimes seems like a once cute baby who grew to be seven feet tall by the time he went to kindergarten. Naturally he hurts the other kids -- he can't adapt to his growth spurt. Twenty thousand geeks are running amok with all their cool ideas, and their attention for their effect on anyone else is not deep enough.
That was awesome !
My dream has come true, to finally see this site's members being allowed to say something negative about goog and have it posted! I can't believe it!
A long time coming. It's amazing how things go in cycles. It used to be MSFT that was hated. Now i'm reading about webmaster switching to Bing.
Personally, I hate the gorg. I've spent the last 2 years working my way off the adsense crack pipe with a shift to a direct sales model. It has not been easy. They got me hooked in late 2003 with big FAT checks. Plug in some code and send me a check. Proud to say that i'm nearly off. Once that's done I could give a F about there search results. At that point I no longer have any association with them.
Let's try to understand what is the goal of google with this new feature ?
The first one seem to get out of the search results the 98 % of websites on the internet that are not serious and useless.. ( that is a good idea ) because there is seriously a lot of trash out there...
The second that I don't like as much is done so that google makes even more money that it is already making.. from what I understand unless you are in the TOP 3 of google on the first page you are going be forced to advertise because you won't appear anymore. However isn't that already the case, if you have a website you probably already aware that unless you in are in the TOP 3 on a money making keyword , you won't make a single dime from your website and you won't see more than maybe 30 visitors a month...
So my guess is that google knows that 99 % of the websites that are listed in their system don't have any visitors so what they want to do is have 3 serious major players in each industry and forget about the rest... so to me it means that you have no other choice that be in the TOP 3 of google to make money...
I tend to agree with they way they think but my only concern is how can a small business make it in this world, when you have a small business you have hundreds of things to do, run your business, look for clients, do the marketing, learn the google algorithms etc... and I am worried that the way they think it going to help big business but hurt small businesses, why because big businesses have the money to pay teams of seo to work 24 / 7 for them and get in the TOP 3 of google, whereas a small business can but it is going to take them years if they have the patience to figure out what thousands of engineers work on everyday around the world ( especially if their business is in a competitive industry who can afford to make no money for years ;)
Question now : let's stay I want to start a watch making business tomorrow, if all the people that type watches on the internet all have personalized search results how can I make my website appear in their personalized search results ? what I don't understand how can a new website make it if google already selects the best for you ?
Joes User's SERP becomes a little stale. Ads are shiny new and now more compelling than they used to be.
On to the "privacy issue": Cookies are nothing new, and the ability to store data on searches from a specific location (such as an IP address) is nothing new. The only thing that's really new is delivering search results that reflect a searcher's preferences as expressed through past search behavior. That may be a concern to searchers who don't want their do-it-yourselfer wives to search on "paint stripper" and find a striptease-photo site featuring a girl named "Paint" at the top of the search results, or who are afraid that a visiting friend's Friday-night search for "parties" might yield the American Nazi Party in the #1 slot. This is a potentially sensitive issue that Google will have to deal with; as the expression goes, "the devil is in the details." But the notion that personalized search is a bigger threat to privacy than police video cameras, credit-reporting services, direct-marketing databases, or NSA packet sniffing is nonsense.
Who's really threatened by personalized search? SEOs, and those Web publishers and entrepreneurs whose businesses depend on SEO tactics. That's why we're seeing so much heated discussion in this thread: If Yoursite.com or Mysite.com is outranked by Wikipedia for "blue widgets" or by TripAdvisor for "Widgetville hotels" because users are happy with the results they get from Wikipedia or Tripadvisor, Bluewidgetsforsale.com or Cheapaffiliatehotelrooms.com potentially could lose organic search traffic and revenue.
If Yoursite.com is outranked by Wikipedia for "blue widgets"... because users are happy with the results they get from Wikipedia... could lose organic search traffic and revenue.
for some people, they are the only results that they ever see, so they're the ones that they use. the sites underneath might be loads better, but if personalised search keeps returning the site you used before, who will know?
it's a bit wierd, if you think about it. search engines are there to help you find stuff. but personalised search seems to be geared towards helping you find the stuff that you already know about.
what is the point of that? if you already use wikipedia, then that's where you'll go. you don't need a search engine to help you.
Who's really threatened by personalized search?
Everyone that wants privacy.
Sure, the data is being tracked anyway, but there's no action being taken on that data until this change occurs.
Previously this was an OPT-IN feature for only those signed-in to Google.
Now it's OPT-OUT globally, and if you're not signed in you need to know how to kill a cookie.
This could be the tipping point that pushes serious privacy regulation and makes law makers start to scrutinize Google even further.
[edited by: incrediBILL at 3:48 pm (utc) on Dec. 5, 2009]
This is actually good and the reason is, once people start to see the same results from the same websites for their searches, they are going to try some other search engine. Google is going to lose market share over this.
All those that drank the googleaid for years talking about how Google is so great and not evil, blah, blah just got a dose of reality.
As others have said, Google is not your friend and they don't give a darn about your business.
Tell your friends to stop using Google unless they want Google to own their lives. Stop using Google products and giving them your information for free.
Spread the word, Google is evil and they are only going to get worse.
for some people, they are the only results that they ever see, so they're the ones that they use. the sites underneath might be loads better, but if personalised search keeps returning the site you used before, who will know?
I don't think it's quite as simple as "You seem to like Wikipedia results, so we're always going to serve a Wikipedia result on your SERP even if you're searching for "blue widget dealers in Omaha."
It might mean that if you have a habit of choosing Wikipedia results for searches like "Springfield history," "Shelybville history," and "Widgetville history," you'll see a Wikipedia result in the #1 slot when you search on "Whatsitville history." But that isn't necessarily a bad thing--in fact, it may be a good thing--from Joe Searcher's point of view. He can use a familiar interface (Google's) to search for Wikipedia results, and as a bonus, he'll see non-Wikipedia results, too (which may be useful if the "Whatsitville history" page is non-existent, is skimpy, or is a stub).
Mind you, if enough Joe Searchers aren't happy with personalized search results, Google is likely to make changes to personalized search or phase it out entirely. That's what I meant by "The market will decide," as it did when Coca-Cola drinkers rejected "New Coke" en masse in 1985. Democracy isn't always perfect, but to those of us who grew up with the old Coca-Cola and said "No" to New Coke, the power of the marketplace can be a wonderful thing. :-)
127.0.0.1 ad.yieldmanager.com
127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
# and here is the drastic one(note to self: uncomment when searching for Bada_Bing)
#8.8.8.8 google.com
#8.8.4.4 www.google.com
Democracy isn't always perfect, but to those of us who grew up with the old Coca-Cola and said "No" to New Coke, the power of the marketplace can be a wonderful thing. :-)
For any normal business, that would be true. But this is Google. A building full of egotistical PHDs all thinking they know what is better for you and me and having the money to not care about what the market thinks.
They are going to ram this down peoples throat whether they like it or not and if they lose market share, I don't think they really care.
They already think the Internet could not exist without them.
I really don't care what Google does with personalization. If they think this move will improve the results, then they have a right to make this move.
I absolutely agree that SEO professionals will get hurt by this - but that's a battle Google wants to fight anyway. A lot of folks on this forum will get hurt by this move because the art of SEO will be less effective.
I'm also on the fence with respect to privacy over the Internet. Let's face it, there are a lot of bad guys out there doing a lot of bad stuff because their privacy is protected. I'm sure there are even more "less harmful" dirty little secrets out there too.
The company I work for monitors every move we make over the Internet. Now that's big brother for you - but I didn't quit my job over it. In fact, I've yet to hear about someone quitting over that company's policy. They've fired people with dirty little secrets - maybe those folks should have quit...
I saw a 4% increase across the board yesterday, which is statistically insignificant. If anyone has seen a huge drop as a result of this change, I'm not finding any reports of it.
Google wants to give their searchers what they are looking for, so my goal is to offer what Google's searchers are looking for. It's about end-user experience, and that hasn't changed one bit.
Is traffic going up or down on the sites you manage?
Really?! Are you somehow justifying this by how much money you PERSONALLY are making. lol, No need to explain. It's worked so far on 99% of webmasters.
How much is your future freedom worth to you?
$1K/month?
$5K/Month?
$10k/month?
Let Gorg know, and they will surely pay you that amount (and have for the past 4 years) for your acquiescence to keep quiet.
This could be the tipping point that pushes serious privacy regulation and makes law makers start to scrutinize Google even further...........
This is just the start of what windbag Eric S was talking about when he saw the Google future controlling peoples thoughts for searches.
This is actually good and the reason is, once people start to see the same results from the same websites for their searches, they are going to try some other search engine. Google is going to lose market share over this.
Let's hope so. (see below)
but what can we do against a multibillion dollar business other than writing messages on forums, not much at least I think...
Ugh! More victim thinking.
"How in the world can we, the opinion makers, the ACTUAL COLLECTIVE internet with our TRUSTED OPINIONS from the BILLIONS of people who visit our sites to read what WE think, ever be able to do anything?!"
Wake up! PLEASE!
We, THE ACTUAL SITES WITH CONTENT AND PRODUCTS, created the Googenstien when we did NOTHING for the past 4 years even when any LOGICAL person saw this coming. (See below for advice)
This is just the beginning. Webmasters typically have a way to communicate with their (often main stream) users. They write blogs. They link to interesting and concerning stuff all the time. Looking at the reaction on this forum, this might be the final drop that was needed...
Thank you Zett for clearly laying out HOW THE INTERNET WORKS.
WE write the blogs that people read for quality information and opinions.
WE were the ones who recommended Gorg over Altavista, Ask, Yahoo, etc
WE are the ones threw Adwords on every page for the quick buck.
WE are ALSO the ones who have the POWER to change how the public views Gorg.
WE are the internet.
Always have been. Always will be. UNLESS
- you're willing to trade your long term power for 30 silver coin and your continued silence
- simply can't be bothered to see that if you continue to allow this to happen
YOU WILL HAVE NO INTERNET BUSINESS anyways in as little as 3-6 months from now.
A lot of folks on this forum will get hurt by this move because the art of SEO will be less effective.
Yes, but let's look at the bright side: Building pages and sites with intrinsic value will be more important than ever, and it will create opportunities for Web entrepreneurs who focus on content and on meeting the needs of their end users.
Take a hypothetical guy like Charlie, who has an affiliate site that offers cheap hotel rooms to business travelers with tiny expense accounts. (We'll call his site Charlies-flophouses-for-impoverished-business-travelers.com.) Charlie picks hotels carefully, writes informative descriptions, and offers a better user experience than other pure-play affiliates in his niche do. Soon, thanks to personalized search, he'll have a chance to be rewarded for his efforts, because satisfied users who repeatedly click on his listings in Google's SERPs will tend to see Charlie's listings more often than they see the listings of other hotel affiliates who focus on short-term SEO tactics instead of on content and the user experience. That's bad for the tacticians, but it's good for Charlie and the end user. (It's also good for Google, because satisfied users aren't likely to look for other search engines.)
Here's some more food for thought:
A given search may yield large numbers of equally relevant results (and in many cases, those results are of equal quality). Personalized search will let Google rank those results in a way that makes sense for me. Take reviews of digital widgets: I tend to like in-depth multipage reviews of the kind that I find at DWreview, Widgetlabs, Widgetingresource, and Megawidget. Another prospective widget buyer might prefer the shorter reviews at CNET or Amazon.com. If Google's personalized search can learn my preferences for long, in-depth reviews, I'll see more of the in-depth reviews that I want to read (and fewer of the short-and-sweet reviews that don't interest me) the next time I search on "Canikon NC-1 widget review" or "Panympus PO-2 widget review." That doesn't mean Google will serve up only reviews at DWreview, Widgetlabs, Widgetingresource, or Megawidget when I do a widget search; it just means Google will arrange its rankings in a way that makes sense for me.
On a Web that has billions of pages--including 52,900,000 results for the word "widget"--personalized search is becoming almost a necessity. What's more, the concept of a personalized user experience, where the software learns what to display by observing user behavior, isn't even new. Google personalized search is nothing but a search engine's version of what Microsoft has been doing with its Word menus for years. It's a product enhancement that, if done right, will delight users. (Note the qualifier: As I pointed out earlier, the devil is in the details.)
I for one will discontinue the use of all Google products; email all friends/associates and push alternates.
i simply love how you gloss over the fact, that the PUBLIC already DISSENTED to this form of cookie tracking not 3 years ago.
And Google PROMISED they would NEVER, EVER, EVER use this technique.
The market has ALREADY given their opinion on this tactic.
[edited by: tedster at 6:29 pm (utc) on Dec. 5, 2009]
will business to business searchers see more business type stuff rather than consumer stuff?
will kids see more kid oriented stuff?
I have yet to see this really operate where one can discern the observable differences (other than say searches on movies, restaurants, sports and the like).
Where do you see personalized search different than non personalized search, and can we see it in the stats anywhere yet?
Oh, and I LOVE the rant and rave stuff too!
The thread was about how as a site owner you could opt out of personalised search..but that just meant that your site subject wouldn't get added onto the hsitory of a visitor ..it does not mean that their history wont affect what they see when they arrive on your site in the spaces that you are running adsense in what the visitor sees is directly based upon their history ..and not your content ..and you have no way to know what they will see ..
When this became blindingly obvious ..ASA quit trying to change the subject or say how it would be good for you etc etc ( I suspect that Goog lawyers do tell their reps and PR staff not to lie on the record when off the ranch/plex ..or Google editable properties ) ..or maybe ASA just draws aline somewhere as to what (s)he will try to sell webmasters ...if so ..kudos :)
Concerns anyone running adsense ..even more so now ..
Lets say you have an adsense site about travel to Elbonia ..optimised perfectly ..and bringing you in 4 or 5 figures per month ..and the ads that GOOG served were always on target ..and life was good ..
Now with the new all seeing all inclusive searchers (c and by definition your vistors ) must opt out "featurette" from GORG ..
Wether you as an adsense site owner opt in or out ..
The visitor will hit your site ( maybe after having spent the last 30 minutes or 30 searches on an unrelated subject or subjects ..such as pick-up trucks or curry recipes ..or lap dancers ) ..and to them all your areas designed ( by you ) to show ads related ( via Gorg's adsense contextual algos ) to your subject matter ..
Will instead be showing in your space ..and next to your totally unrelated subject matter ads for pick-up trucks or curry ..or lap dancers..
Think you'll get many adsense clicks ? while said visitor is on your property ..but they'll sure eat through your bandwidth ..
And so will every other visitor who comes in with a Gorg cookie ..
The ads will no longer be remotely related to your subject ..except to maybe the one in a thousand vistors who knows how to kill cookies from Gorg ..
And if they clicked through to you from Gorg serps ..then they already are carrying the cookie ..and will get adsense relevant to their recent surfing ..but not to your site ..
So now where is your control over your site ..and it's content ..in your visitors browser history cookies and Gorgs algo that treads them ..thats where.
You may get more or less traffic ..but it wont be targetted to your site anymore ..and do you think that will make your earnings go up or down ..long term ..
Down is where ..
But Gorgs will go up as yours go down ..because they arent paying for the fancy picture frame into which the "random" ( from your point of view ads ) are landing ..you are paying for that ..How is your bandwidth bill now compared to your earnings from adsense ..
It wont stay that way ..
but then as I mentioned in another thread .
I think that their next move will be to announce that they will be moving into hosting ..and you can move your adsense sites to them ..you do the sites and the content real cheap at a price they will pay ..they provide the space ..
( or maybe small adsense site owners will have to close and get "highly paid freelance work" from "Demand Media" )
Either way Gorg and the big guys win ..
And you become their digital share cropper ..
The problem with the scenario
Charlie who builds a site that offers cheap hotel rooms to business travelers with tiny expense accounts will not be found in the beginning UNLESS he spends significant amounts on ADWORDS, In some ways that is fine for Charlie who has created the site to make money from future advertising, but how about the webmaster who creates a great informative site about saving dogs from the impound ( little advertising potential ) and because he does not have funding to spend large amounts on initial advertising on Google Adwords will never be found let alone become a preferred search result for dogs, but of course the big seller of dog food and the industry biggy will be found because he has a one liner that says think before you buy a dog or it could end up in the impound.
This could also have a major effect on many other sites, I like many others may use Wikipedia for some research, but I decide I want to visit Ebonia for the first time , up till now I have always taken my holidays in the US so have used Wiki, Tripadvisor or other very local specialist sites for my research , but never a site that specializes in Ebonia travel that happens to be based in Ebonia.
Under the new concept and only using G search I will never even realize that specialist site exists.
I do understand some of the reasoning behind G implementation and now also understand why Caffiene was so important ( I.E. sort results by standard algo and then add in personalization all in the flash of an eye ),
G is constantly fighting spammy sites that use the latest techniques to outwit the PHD's at G but as with all of G's changes over the last few years we see more and more innocent bystanders ( webmasters badly effected ) and G does not seem to worry about collateral damage seeing it as an acceptable result FOR THE GREATER GOOD.
