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.
If you are really lucky, you might find "reintepretation" being scaled down for the more discerning user, and results actually reflecting what you look for.
Insightful assertion, as expected. I hope you're right.
Where in the past they could only collect the data of all users in relation to a specific set of results, they can (and certainly do) collect now the relation of a specific user to a specific set of results.In other words: they can now see how each individual (computer) reacts to his personal result set. From this they will be able to build very sophisticated profiles.
@caribguy
...back from vacation?
tedster The Google staff also knows that opt-in, not opt-out, is the most user-friendly default - as well as the most respectful. So the user satisfaction data they were seeing from signed-in and personalized results must be amazingly strong for them to force the default like this.
If I believed that user satisfaction was their goal I might agree with you. I think that it is more likely that they have found that they can influence $-take and $-profit on so called personalized search.
Cheers
Sid
Is WMT showing slanted reports as well? The only reason I ask is that I searched before and after cookies and found a money phrase of mine went from #1 to #2.
I just checked my work WMT account from my home PC and no, I am not seeing different results. WMT is constantly updating - our site has millions of pages and so the various numbers keep changing almost by the minute, esp the number of pages indexed.
I like the "football" example but I'm happy for Google to stick to regionalisation or even nationalisation. Not personalisation.
Google.com shows me the first result as the US NFL site. For Google.com.au the first result is the Aussie AFL site. In Australia there are two major football codes and soccer is a third. We generally refer to the local code as "footy", which avoids any chance of mistaking it for soccer. In my state of Victoria, in WA, and SA, AFL is the predominant body while in NSW and QLD it is the NRL, whose game is a variant of Rugby. If I lived in Sydney, I'd be happy for the NRL site to come up first.
As an SEO, I don't want my work-related searches to stick to my personal identity. Our directory has some adult topics that I don't care to be associated with, but I have to check their rankings from time to time. Even for non-SEOs, I'd imagine that a lot of people would have a clear separation of work and home search patterns.
"Your search results may be customised using search activity from this computer."
Google needs to be regulated because self regulation is not working. They are presenting this in such a way that most people would not suspect what actually lies behind it. They need to be forced to be more open and allow people to make real informed choices.
Cheers
Sid
This allows me to come back to my clients and say it's imperative that we reach #1 for their key word because otherwise get lost in the personalized search shuffle.
I do think that Google is becoming too ubiquitous on the internet and they whole modus operandi is getting more ad dollars through their Adwords and AdSense network and if publishers are scratching their heads on trying to get search engine traffic organically, eventually their going to break down and roll the dice and bid on some key words.
The major loser here, imho, is the advertiser, because due to personalized search online advertising spend is going to inevitably increase. Which may be good for SEOs and Marketeers like myself but not so great for my clients.
from what I've read the #1-3 rankings do not change regardless of user/CPU or browser.
Yes good point but who and how is going to do that? Here in AU for example the local would be "white night" (read prime-idiot-minister) is on a mission to save us all from the eveil internet and is pushing hard for mandatory internet censorship. This is just one example of govenment policy and the internet, hmmm no thanks..
from what I've read the #1-3 rankings do not change regardless of user/CPU or browser.
let me debunk that right now. After reading this thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]
and finding it hilarious, I shared it with some coworkers. 3 out of 5 DID NOT get the same top results for an identical search, not even close. After clearing the cache and cookies (and entering private mode for the firefox users) we all got the same results.
Since then I have run this test with some more friends and a lot of people who do not have search history cleared just don't get the joke because they land on, for example, blog pages 'explaining' the joke, or on DVD-ish pages relating to the query.
Telling people "Just Google Blue Widgets and you'll find it" isn't going to work any more. There is going to be a lot more linking going on to find stuff...
