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.
Typical users do not seem to use the browsers bookmark function for whatever reason,
There is no savior on this isue coming from Redmond.
Not in the USA ..but in Europe they have been repeatedly smacked on the nose and brought to heel ..so they would'nt dare ..here ..
Goog have yet to learn that you cant buy ( whoops ..lobby ) 27 differing heads of state or governments ..
edited ..@davelms ..you had n't posted when I started typing ..so that was not meant to reflect upon you ..( but I would suggest that you try to get your kids to understand that the pictures in their heads are better when they read books or listen to the radio than when they use the web ) ..
My comment is based on what I suspect is common to all of us here..if your acquaintances ..get to know you use the net for business ..you get asked to "take a look" because "it isn't workin"/ "kids broke it" /"has maybe a virus" ..
Usually the result of pron or P2P ..
But the same people are customers of someone ..and they think books ..are for school or "intelekchewuls" ..and ( especially the idea of you possesing thousands in your own house ) is weird ..
But they have disposable income ..credit cards ..cars outside ..and computers with internet access ..and are someones customer ..and GORG knows them and loves them ..just like a farmer loves his cows ..
and knows that they wont opt out ..even if they knew they were opted in ..because it would mean understanding too many long words ..and "anyway ..if they can get youtube and pron and warez and ripped movies ..and GORG helps them find all that and more ..including the illegal stuff ..why do they care ..
"The new Article 5(3) of Directive 2002/58/EC (Directive on privacy and electronic communications) will thus read:
“Member States shall ensure that the storing of information, or the gaining of access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his/her consent, having been provided with clear and comprehensive information, in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC, inter alia about the purposes of the processing. This shall not prevent any technical storage or access for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network, or as strictly necessary in order for the provider of an information society service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user to provide the service.”"
The EU has already entered the second phase of legal action against the UK government re: DPI, opt-in and directed advertising methods (and yes, again a UK ISP is intending to implement non-opted-in DPI, apparently with the UK Gov's blessing).
Google's action is likely to infringe along similar lines but as cookie-based revenue generation (which has been foreseen!): A guy has asked for ABC several times, let's reinforce the adverts for it - and charge for adwords based on this targetting 'cause the adword will get higher click-throughs so the guy will pay more.
The crux for EU/UK will doubtless be the opt-out default: only those in the know will bother and most people will simply wonder why the ads are targetting them more closely.
And, as several here have pointed out: most households probably use a single computer for all the family, so targetting search results, even without targetting adverts, is likely to cause unrest when junior's search for "paper strips" gets daddy's (or mummy's!) search results preferences.
I think the EU is going to be looking at this one: they already dislike google... and MS... and probably most of the USA. :)
Quote above is from the nodpi site. See also Privacy International.
I have a question I can't find a ready answer to. Do these cookies retain or transmit the "search history" restricted to google queries, or the browser history itself? Maybe that's a dumb question. But I can't find out. One of the story source links above has a link for 'search history', but it gives an 'information not found' error ;S There's a difference between a cookie and a trojan, right?
Anyway, as for the efficacy of personalized serps, I share the misgivings of posters here. I do alot of academic type searches. I have spent decades searching for data in non-digital media of every possible kind. I have gotten very good at this ( I was once hit square on top of my head by a very large copy of 'the History of Greek Thought') and bring those kinds of skills and instincts to the web. Could there possibly be an algorythm that can out guess me? I like to think not, at least.
However, it occured to me that there can be benefits. For instance, while searching even the most arcane historical, literary, or other types of academic subjects, my serps have alway been crammed full of MFA scraper sites, all using the same trifling tid-bits of information 'content' to hang their ads on. If Google personalized search can tell that I have learned to detect these, and tend always to click on sites with valuable and original content, and it magically rearranges it's serps so that these appear on the first pages, and the phony scraper sites are at the nether end, this would be a technological advance indeed.
Google knows me too well.
To my lady friends: I will not be buying Victoria Secret equipment this Xmas!
[edited by: sailorjwd at 11:47 pm (utc) on Dec. 5, 2009]
It just became more important to attract search traffic that has no monetary value because that will help you rank better for money terms
That was my thought also. I personally don't have the energy or inclination to worry about the privacy issues - will leave that to others. Being lazy, I wonder will this affect me much, and how can I make it benefit me?
Keep working to make my sites informative and getting more traffic for the less competitive terms, and with this change it may do better on the money terms.
Personalized search should work against the keyword in domain, one page wonders (good), but help the article directories and social sites (bad). Net effect on smaller but informative niche sites? Impossible to predict I think.
Well, sorry, but no we're not. We're a bunch of reverse engineering grafters trying to fiddle our websites to the top of the serps. The "market" is not webmasters, it's the 99.9999 percent of joe public who aren't webmasters.
Anyways, I'm hoping that this new intiative of Omni Consumer Products, oops, sorry, Google, will get Adsense's "interest based" stuff working - or wroking better.
Check it out:
Interest-Based Advertising Survey [webmasterworld.com]
66% of people don't want interest based advertising, and over 50% don't even want interest based news, so Google is going to give them Interest Based SERPs instead... What's the problem with that?
And lots of employees will be embarrassed (i.e. fired) when their boss happens to use their machine for a minute.
Sorry, but what if I'm schizo? Sounds like dissability discrimination to me.
:Edited to replace non-"dirty" word, which was censored by WebmasterWorld, whilc missing the MORE dirty one :).
I think they have just done it so that webmasters see their site at #1 all the time and stop trying to beat the algo.
How many webmasters click on their own site when researching their rank? I don't.
Do these cookies retain or transmit the "search history" restricted to google queries, or the browser history itself?
Good question - and as far as I can tell it's not the browser history. No web server has access to browser history.
Google is keeping two kinds of history: search history tied only to the cookie and search history tied to a specific, logged in user. I am wondering if there is or will be an cross-infouence between the two. Given that the same computer and cookie is often tied to more than one user and more than one Google account, I assume there will not be any cross-influence, but you never know, do you?
I've also been noticing how search suggestions are becoming more of a factor, and search suggestions can also be personalized. Another factor to keep in mind, I think.
You may be the only one, but you better start now, at least when the cookie is not disabled. Click tracking is now officially part of the algo, at least in part.
You may be the only one, but you better start now, at least when the cookie is not disabled. Click tracking is now officially part of the algo, at least in part.
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The creepy part of this cannot be ignored either, Google will follow you whether you want to or not. Maybe you need to watch your shoulder as you search if people realize that Google shows your previously visited sites first :)
I don't see this Google announcement as creating a new privacy issue. The privacy issues involved are far from unique to Google, at any rate.
The privacy issue is massive and unique to Google, JUST BECAUSE Google has their property spread all over the place, sometimes disguised as other brands and sometimes unknown to the user. Youtube, Blogger, Feedburner? Adsense, Analytics, Maps? ONLY Google is currently able to follow a browsers steps almost entirely as he moves from site to site. One site shows a Google Map. The next site uses Analytics. And the site visited after that uses Adsense. And then he visits a site with a Youtube video on. Then the user goes back to Google search to conduct another search and arrives at a Blogger page.
The folks in Redmond can not do that. They simply have not got the reach. Even if they collect user data (they certainly do), they can not track you throughout the web.
All this data gives a perfect behaviour profile (on the web), and we all have to pray that this massive data collection does not get into the wrong hands. THAT is the real privacy issue here.
Implications from that? I am now going to guessing mode: if you are a webmaster who does not use Goo products at all, i.e. not allowing the Gorg to track your visitors throughout your sites, then you will lose your organic rankings over time. See, that's the beauty of it! They start slowly to excert their power over you, trying to control your behaviour and your thoughts.
- Do you really want to publish that blog post on your site that criticizes Google? Really? What if Google finds out? One push of a button at the Plex, and you are gone from the SERPs.
- Do you really want to publish that forum post on (insert popular webmaster forum here) where the forum operator uses Analytics to see what happens? Really? What if Google finds out and instantly knows who you are? One push of a button at the Plex, and you are gone from the SERPs.
- Do you really pull all your Adsense ads from your pages? What if Google liked your sites because of Adsense being present?
See how subtle Google has already influenced our way of thinking (as webmasters)? It's all about FEAR. FEAR to lose rankings. FEAR to lose business. FEAR to become invisible.
FEAR is very Googley.
We as webmasters have created a monster (really) that now is out of control. Entirely. Thousands of bright minds serve the Gorg in exchange for some money, willing to please it in the FEAR of losing their company perks. They come up with more creative ideas to track users and to further embed their overlord into the minds of the users. To the outside this is disguised as having "more attractive products for consumers". But we -as webmasters- know what this is all about: tracking, more ads, better ads, more money, more Google mindshare. A perpetuum mobile.
Looking at the discussion here, and WW is by far the best place to have such a discussion, we seem to be still uncertain how to get the ghost back into the bottle. Some even don't see the need for that.
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And I see one more issue in usability, again from a consumer perspective: you can not discuss SERPs with other people. Let's assume for a second, you found something on Goo, and you're writing an E-Mail to your friend in another city (doesn't even have to be another country). In the past, your friend would have been able to easily find the same stuff as you did. Now, his "personalized" search interferes with his search results, and he will not see the same SERPs. Probably not even results that are close to what you are seeing (as it was in the past). Looking at our logs, we receive a lot of traffic from links that get sent by E-Mail, so I know that people do forward links to their friends and family. Google is no exception here.
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So, what can we do? What should we do?
As signor_john pointed out, boycotts seem to not work, because of the FEAR of webmasters to lose their rankings. However, those who are fearless should ACT NOW and tell their visitors, friends, family, colleagues. Make it a public topic. Write blogs, tweets, articles. Film a video. Ask mainstream media to report about the risks using Google.
And remove Google property from your sites to block Google's tracking ability. Then put a logo on your site: "Google can not track you on this site" with an explanation of what this means and why you are doing this (and do explain that this statement is not true if the user is using Google toolbar, Chrome browser, Chrome OS, Android, or Google DNS).
Animal Farm. Or 1984? The choice is ours.
Sell toolbars and software that benefits users (e.g. free smilies pack or web games, get them to download and install it. Software then runs searches on Google for your site.
Companies then pay you $$$ to buy computing/cpu time, e.g. 1000 searches/clicks a day to your site for $100.
If you have 500k install base, you end up manipulating search results on 500k of those PCs, in effect you would be running your own little Google SERPs where the highest bidder gets to the top.
Google could easily cover themselves by simply having as part of their terms of use a statement which says that by virtue of you using this service you are deemed to have opted into our personalised search which records details of your search history in a browser cookie.
Cheers
Sid
Google will continue to return the best sites they can find to any search query else the shelf life of Google will be dramatically decreased, there are other options.
Is it a good idea to intentionally NOT return the best site according to Google in favor of the best site according to individual computers? No, it's not.
BIG MISTAKE ! Because the idea is unsound. How it SHOULD have been implemented is with a big-ol "don't show me this site again" button that searchers can push when they see crap THUS leaving them with a REAL personalized set of results over time.
This spying stuff is going too far, I share my computer with family members and we don't like the same things.
edit: I wonder if Google will help foot the bill in fighting all of the viruses that do nothing more than alter personalized results, how would the average Joe or granny even know? This would in turn reflect badly on Google and that's really not a good thing. Please Google, before it's too late, turn this off and let the end user tell you what they don't want to see... don't spy and guess!
The privacy issue is massive and unique to Google, JUST BECAUSE Google has their property spread all over the place, sometimes disguised as other brands and sometimes unknown to the user.
In that way, yes Google has definitely taken things to an unprecedented scale. I only touched on this aspect when I mentioned "vertical monopoly". One hidden brand that should probably be on that privacy concerns list is DoubleClick, and it has more of a stealth factor going for it than most. And what about business partners like AOL?
As another point of useful information - Google themselves does offer an Advertising Cookie Opt-out Plugin [google.com] for IE and Firefox.
Good point.
I agree that it sounds like this could greatly benefit the big sites. It's already so hard for niche sites to get in the door.
Perhaps it should work in the reverse - lowering the ranking of a site that you've visited already. After all, it had its turn to make an impression and get that bookmark from you.
Next version of Firefox and IE should have a "Google Neuter" tool, on by default.
I'm glad people are finally waking up. Gorg (LOL I finally got it as I typed it out, it's from star trek!) has always run an "evil" business. Perhaps not entirely intentionally, but their business model is based on the fraud that is Adwords (other search engines just as guilty).
BTW, I wonder if clicking on adword results will have an effect? In my market, Adwords are not used to get consumer clicks, but to tell your prospective business clients "look at us we spend lots on advertising." More important now to get your clients clicking on your results, so they get reminded of you.
You should be able to use the Google Adwords Preview tool to see your neutral region specific ranking.
I was making a one off search for Spanish language hosted forums as a result of a query on another board. A test search for my own site resulted in 2 Adsense ads for language courses and one for Spanish tourism. I think I will have to start blocking a few cookies.
Click your site, disable/clear your cookies, click your site with new cookie, etc. SEO2010.
I think they have just done it so that webmasters see their site at #1 all the time and stop trying to beat the algo.
This is a fascinating idea that needs exploring. I strongly feel there has been a profound change in the Google strategic and operational plan this year.
If SEO's, Webmasters, and site owners no longer have any influence over their rankings, they will no longer give it any attention, blog posts, tweets, or develop content for the Google algo. They will start to work with services and places that do offer them the opportunity to acquire traffic.
I believe the tipping point of Facebook was reached 2 years ago because the marketing crowd (yes, specifically the WebmasterWorld crowd) took to Facebook with an explosion of activity. I also believe that twitter would still be just another quirky chat site without the Marketing and Optimization Community (MOC) promoting it in late 2007 and early 2008.
If SEO's and site owners no longer can influence Google - or it no longer holds ROI on the time investment - then they will look elsewhere for traffic. I believe this is happening.
The amazing part here, is how complacent - almost encouraging - that Google has been in allowing this to happen. Their apathy and silence towards the Marketing Optimization Community in 2009 has shocked and angered me.
In the last year:
- Google has withdrawn support from major industry events.
- Google canceled their famous industry outreach and goodwill party, the Google Dance.
- Withdrawn almost entirely to the confines of the walled garden of Google servers. Gone are the days of GoogleGuy engaging the public on the public's sites.
Google's attention seems to be almost entirely on phones and other non-search services. They appear to have left the keys in the hands of the programers and left it to them to carry the load while they tinker with new and sexier services like mobile.
Why has Google abandoned the marketing optimization community? Do they believe:
- that adwords/search advertising has peaked and it is time to put it in to maintenance mode?
- that they have optimized revenue from all current major channels?
- that there is no longer ROI in marketing their search products?
- that their engine has done all it can do and there is no more need for investment in changes?
- that with their brand becoming 'Kleenex' that their next battle is at the OS level?
- Good it be, that they believe that their future is no longer search?
My Thoughts:
Google has maximized all they can do with advertising and search. They believe their future and next major battle is in Chrome, Android, and a Desktop cloud OS. They no longer have the resources and man power to dedicate to search. Thus, there is no need to perform maintenance on the community.
BT
..."If you want to know some ones intentions, look at their results. In the business world, your results are 100% your intention." -Warren Buffett.
Or the recent attempts by M$ TV Adds with bunch people talking gibberish are working its way thru the revenue?
And they have enouph channels that produce beacons that search is almost absolite?
How about a highly visible toggle right on the search page that saysPersonalized Results: ON - OFF
Then EVERY user would begin to get the message that Google is collecting and storing their data. Would Google consider that level of transparency too much for their taste? Do they want every user to know what's happening with their data?
I wonder if Goog's reason for introducing recently the fading-in style home page was to prevent the masses from easily noticing the "Web History" link.
If SEO's, Webmasters, and site owners no longer have any influence over their rankings, they will no longer give it any attention, blog posts, tweets, or develop content for the Google algo. They will start to work with services and places that do offer them the opportunity to acquire traffic.I believe the tipping point of Facebook was reached 2 years ago because the marketing crowd (yes, specifically the webmasterworld crowd) took to Facebook with an explosion of activity. I also believe that twitter would still be just another quirky chat site without the Marketing and Optimization Community (MOC) promoting it in late 2007 and early 2008.
If SEO's and site owners no longer can influence Google - or it no longer holds ROI on the time investment - then they will look elsewhere for traffic. I believe this is happening.
Very well said and I agree 100%.
This is going to be the undoing of the dominance Google has in search because they have now turned their backs on the very crowd that actually made them what they are.
If it were not for the webmaster crowd telling all their clients and friends just how great Google was when they first started out, they would have never reached the heights they have.
Now, as that community turns away from them and actually discourages people from using them for privacy and other reasons, their market share will fall.
The thing is, they just don’t seem to really care and with the change in their culture lately, it seems to be the final nail in the search efforts.
They have used the webmaster community over the years to achieve their goals and they now feel they don’t need them anymore so, they give all of us the big kiss off.
I could not help but laugh when Matt Cutts came out and said they were not rolling out caffeine until after the Holidays because they “didn’t want to stress webmasters” and goog fanboys actually believed it.
Google has had a good run and now that they have grown up and become the very thing they said they never would, they have moved on to other things and search is no longer their priority.
Bing needs to call them and thank them for the early Christmas present. And if Bing plays their cards right, they just might end up being the next dominate player in search for a while.
