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.
UNSURE, what next Google is upto demolist (as per past 9+ experience, a fall of huge empires again)
[edited by: Future at 9:51 pm (utc) on Dec. 6, 2009]
Maybe Google ads will disappear completely from the Google search pages on my computer? :} If the algo works correctly, they should disappear, shouldn't they. :
@fargo1999 ..no ..unless Brett has blocked off Gorgbot again ..you would probably just raise this thread and your own post to number one on your search ..and Gorg would have cookie that with just a tiny bit of data mining would let them know who fargo1999 was ..and especially what (s)he had been doing on the net since quite some time ..
And you'd have to trust them never to use that info against you ..nor ever let anyone else use it ..so lets all hope that you always looked at pages that the government of the day ( in the future ) would approve of ..
This is just a very clever way to get AdWords displaying for non commercial search terms. I.e. one minute you’re searching for Adidas Gazelles, the next you’re wondering how long badgers hibernate for over winter but the shoe ads are still displaying.
I recall noticing this happening a short while back and thinking, “hey that’s a glitch, no actually it’s not, that’s very clever!”.
Never did manage to get the shoes I was looking for in my size though.
Anyway, other than the possibility of a leak, the only other real threat is the government. Like you said though, the government has big guns, and honestly if they wanted more information on you then they would have ways of getting it, whether legally or illegally. Who knows, your best friend could be an undercover op just gathering intel on you... (ok, thats out there, but just making a point)
I just don't see the problem with it unless you are doing something illegal or something you don't want your friends to know about. Then again, if its that important to you there is always encryption, proxies, etc..
Then again, I've grown up with myspace/facebook/etc. so maybe I'm just used to no privacy... lol
note if you are running any browser and have it tweaked to use the google search beta ( with column on the left ) then you will not see the "web history" link at top right and will need to manually go into your cookie store and remove the all google cookies ..
Thank you for pointing this out as I was testing the new interface and not seeing it.
[edited by: anallawalla at 10:52 pm (utc) on Dec. 6, 2009]
I have a fixed IP. Regardless of whether I turn cookies on or off, google can still determine who I am (within one of two people on this IP) and what I search for.
They have always been able to do that.
I do NOT want them to screw up my searches through that information by sending me what THEY think I want (which I usually only want for a day or two; my wife usually holds on to sites for years and gets to them via the address bar, not via SEs). Nor do I want them attempting to push "targetted" adverts at me (which I almost never click on).
Ok, if an ad really offends me I might click on it to cost the guy money, then close the tab before the site comes up.
It occurs to me that if the general public get wind of this "here's more of what you asked for" syndrome then a lot of sx sites are going to lose a lot of visitors! :)
First Google, then the world! Pretty soon, Netflix will be telling me what movies I might like to watch. (Oops--come to think of it, they already do.
Exactly. 17 pages, and signor_john finally sums it up perfectly.
Then again, I've grown up with myspace/facebook/etc. so maybe I'm just used to no privacy... lol
colour me unsurprised ..they intended you to feel that way ..you.. and the rest of your generation ..unlol
Even just closing the browser tab and re-initiating google.com homepage after clearing cookies.
That should definitely trigger a change of rankings faster.. SEO becomes a different game nowadays...
This is a change that will not go away. The mass will not rise up and protest. Google will not shrink away. Change comes to every industry, many times, sooner or later. That's why we don't have many telegraph operators, railroad porters or typewriter repairmen.
As much as it makes me sick too, we have to roll and adapt with this change or die.
If I didn't know better, I'd say the National Security Agency encouraged this. Sooner or later, we'll see "personalized search history" come up in someone's trial. It'll probably be for one of those new offenses the government created with clever wording like: "Domestic Extremist" = a protestor. Or, "Verbal Terrorist" - a loud protestor.
if that would fly then they would concider the sites that allow an Excessive use of "LOL" as "Verbal Terrorist Vertual Training Camps"? Then "News Corporation" and Gorg are definately on the hook....
LOQ(... out quiet)
A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies...Cluetrain manifesto [cluetrain.com]
GoogleGuy (remember him?) once told us that a copy of Cluetrain was pinned on the wall in the plex. The janitor must have got it.
Remember is different than using that memory to serve up serps where they decide to emphasize what they think is best for me.
I've been doing a lot of searches the past two weeks looking for pictures a friend of mine finds particularly repelant. I send her a "pic of the day" to torture her. If I didn't have the thing turned off, how long would Google's villiage idiot personalized search allow these joke searches to impact the results they display me for everything?
How long will my click results for [john doe silly face] contribute to how they rank my searches for [health care], [poverty] and [tahiti real estate]?
The answer is 180 days apparently, but I don't want it to be 180 seconds, and the phenomenon is all the worse now that Google constanly "guesses" what searchers really meant to type and thus serve up gobs of irrelevant stuff.
"The reason we keep [search engine data] for any length of time is one, we actually need it to make our algorithms better, but more importantly, there is a legitimate case of the government, or particularly the police function or so forth, wanting, with a Federal subpoena and so forth being able to get access to that information."
-- Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, All Things Considered, NPR interview between 5:40 and 6:40, October 2, 2009.
Sometimes I click on a result, or visit a site, or whatever and visit longer than would probably be algorithmically determined as 'did not like it', because I'm sitting there shocked thinking 'how did this garbage make it into the results', and what is this, and how do I get these stinking CSS pop-ups to turn off all the time in my browser without disabling CSS? What if I try this? (Click refresh) What about this? (Click refresh again)
I'm not necessarily sitting there looking at it because I like it or want to see it again, sometimes it's for a completely different reason, such as I'm shocked and want to see how in the world a page got in the results, or how to undo something they do, or wondering who designed and created it so I can make sure I don't visit anything they create again... There's all different reason I don't just click back, which does not necessarily mean I want to see the result again or 'vote for it' or 'show it to someone else', except to say, look at how bad this garbage is!
There's one site I knowingly try to avoid when searching for coding answers, because all they give you if you're not a member is two CSS pop-ups which take time to close, and the question someone asked with the ability to 'sign up for free for 30 days to see the answer' and even though I frequently look for a way to remove the site from the results I see by clicking the little 'remove' (or whatever) link while I'm logged in sometimes I still run into it. IMO they let Googlebot through, but make people sign up, which is cloaking and IMO should be penalized, because I cannot see the answer even if Googlebot can, and I refuse to sign up, because they try to make me when the answer is posted somewhere else for free, so I don't need their 30 days worth of a free visits to find what I was looking for, EVER.
I don't visit the site because I like it. I visit, because sometimes I read the title and forget to check the URL so I know to not visit it.
It's like all the people here talking about how a high bounce rate is bad and should be factored into the results...
I have one site with a page on it that has an over 85% bounce rate, which those here who keep stating they think bounce rate should be taken into account probably think is 'bad', because there's is low and they think that's good, but which is better: The page (site) with a lower bounce rate, which indicates the visitor had to view more pages to find what they were ultimately looking for, or the page I have with a bounce rate of over 85% for months on end which also happens to have an average visit time of over 3 minutes for the same period of time?
I think the one I'm referring to says both the search engines and I did our jobs. I optimized the page correctly and SEs return it for the correct searches. People find exactly what they were looking for on the exact page returned in the results... It may be made evident by a long average visit time coupled with a high bounce rate. Just because not everyone can do this does not mean my site (page) should be penalized. Of course, they could be visiting for so long because they keep looking for the answer they think is on the page and cannot find it. There is really no way to make an exact determination based on their behavior.
The reason for the preceding is to highlight: One of the huge problems with this type of system is making a determination based on very limited knowledge other than 'time' and 'averages', which does not really tell anything.
IMO You really cannot take the numbers Google has access to and make an accurate determination of 'like' v. 'did not like' based on behavior without direct input from the visitor, because there are all different reasons why 'visit time' might be different, such as clicking a link, leaving the computer because you still have not found what you were looking for and need to take a break, then returning to the computer and conducting the search again on a different engine... The actual result of the search is the exact opposite of what the numbers seem to indicate, even if Analytics is involved.
I guess another way to say what I mean is: Individuals are individuals, as made evident by the usual discrepancies in the recollection of the observation of an event by different individuals, which is based on many different factors, including point of observation, knowledge of the situation, etc., and the behavior of any given individual in this situation is based solely on their reaction to a site or page and a number of external factors which are individually unique reactions and observations to a presentation and based on a number of factors an algorithm is really unable to determine, because individuals all react as individuals and the reason for their actions or reactions really cannot be determined without direct input from them.
[edited by: TheMadScientist at 2:10 am (utc) on Dec. 7, 2009]
“Changes to this Privacy Policy
Please note that this Privacy Policy may change from time to time.”
What is the value of a privacy policy that can be unilaterally changed?
At first I thought it was worthless. Meaningless.
Now, I realise it is actually very valuable. It sooths and entices the unaware, it baits the trap. It means to catch and exploit.
The type and scale of private info G collects requires a far higher protection than a Privacy Policy which they can amend as, when and how they see fit…
It's in their interest to exploit our information and it's definitely not in ours!
It is a freedom of choice that has been taken away from the user.
Google isn't the only search engine. If a user really doesn't like Google's personalized search, he can see what Bing and Yahoo (soon to be Binghoo) have to offer.
Still, I don't think many users will be dissatisfied. Google personalized search has been around for nearly three years: the only thing that's new is extending it to people who aren't using Google accounts. As someone who usually is signed into a Google account, I can't say that I've noticed any lack of variety or choice in Google search results since personalized search was introduced. For example, when I was looking for [networking widget] reviews about a week ago, I found reviews at useful sites that I'd never heard of on pages 1 and 2 of my presumably personalized SERPs.
the only thing that's new is extending it to people who aren't using Google accounts.
what's new ..as you keep deliberately ignoring ..is that it's opt in by default ..without saying anything about it personalising search from the moment you visit any page that is fed anything by Gorg ..
and it's already illegal to track via opt in by default in Europe ..somewhere whose laws and customs one would suppose would be dear to your heart ..
Surely you are not encouraging and condoning publically on WebmasterWorld ..companies and their employees that visit and operate in Europe ( Gorg have offices in Ireland ) to break European laws with their products and services in Europe .
the only thing that's new is extending it to people who aren't using Google accounts.
The "only" thing? How easy it is to minimize to absurdity.
Even if we use your previously supplied analogy of Netflix, those "personalized suggestions" are for existing customers. Netflix is not making suggestions to a driveby visitor that has never seen their site or patronaized their business - suggestions based on what they viewed on youtube, what they purchased through a doubleclick affiliate, what they read on g-books, or what they wrote about on g-mail, etc.
Have you ever lost a client(as a professional) due to a sudden, and unwanted by many professional persons and visitors to a clients property, change in privacy practice that has been rolled out by any source of traffic?
This is NOT in a spirit of Santa's favorite words if you will....
Thanks.
As a user I think it's ok.
What sucks is that sometimes you would tell someone to "go to the 4th result" if you search for "blah blah". I guess that may change now.
I did a search for one of my phrases, and found my site at #8. I clicked on my link, spent a few minutes on my site, then went back to search for another phrase. I then came back and searched for the first phrase, and my site was now #2.
How the heck can anyone optimize for this?
It seems like the entire reason a person searches is to find something NEW unless it is a navigational search (i.e. typing in Amazon instead of Amazon.com in the address bar). If you want to find something you are already familiar with then you would just GO DIRCTLY THERE and would have no need to search.
IMHO, to assume that a computer algorithm can correctly judge relevance or more importantly INTENT on anything other than a literal keyword search is flawed. It is why keywords on broad match have lower ROI than those more narrowly targeted on phrase or exact. If a computer algorithm could determine relevancy and INTENT, then all the advertising dollars would be flowing into banners/display media and Yahoo! would be the most profitable company on the net and have revenues far surpassing those of Google but they don't and they never will.
Having a near monopoly on consumer searches, this type of thing makes a HUGE difference. If it was a library making some information more accessable than other information or the librarian steering library users to a certain section before all else, there would be an instant firestorm. It raises privacy concerns for sure but more so than that is filtering information at the access point.
Since it is a search engine and is rather invisible to the average user, it doesn't get picked up much but has a much more profound impact on the public and the information they are likely to access.
If Google had 30% marketshare it woudn't be that big of a deal, if it was OPT-IN, that would be in line with "Don't Be Evil". When was the last time some new feature launched as Opt-in? Never, cause people don't really want it or care but collecting all that information is in line with shareholder value. If you're going to be a 100B company, ya gotta be pretty ruthless. There is no state of equilibrium where a [public] corporation has made enough money.
It IS all inline with the goal of "organizing the world's information". When all the world's information is organized, there is no need for anything but Google, merchants and consumers. If all commerce information is organized, merchants (who then might be only manufacturers if all the middle men are cut out including the retail level) get squeezed to the bone on margins. Disorganized information or "friction" in the marketplace keeps millions of people employed. It adds stability and sustainability to a marketplace or even a biological ecosystem. Wipe out all the "friction" in commerce and you have a lot of displaced & unemployed people.
It seems like the entire reason a person searches is to find something NEW
I don't think so. People will much more like the SERPS, when they usually find the things they are looking for on sites they already know and trust.
Lets say, you are looking for "blue widgets" and click on serious-widgets.tld (and do not bounce back to the SERPS but stay on their site). Your neighbor did the same search and clicks on funny-widgets.tld. Next time, both of you are looking for "green widgets" and you get the result from serious-widgets.tld higher in the SERPS while your neighbor gets the result from funny-widgets.tld listed higher. The individual satisfaction with the SERPS is of course higher, not possible with aggregating all the data.
Culturally this may become a problem some day, since everybody lives in his own little and completely personalized world. Ads, movies, music, search results, everything "individual", no shared experiences or memories. But that is still some years in the future.
In the present, the main problem is privacy. Google and others have been gathering this data already for years, actually nothing new there. But people will notice it more and more. And people will start to dislike it more and more. Google has to find a way to collect individual data without collecting individual data.
In the future it will be much harder to spot if/why certain results do not show up, and if not how widespread "the problem" is. It will not only be difficult to find out what is going on behind the curtains, no, it will be difficult to find out THAT something is going on behind the curtains! It's a dream come true for any censor in any country! Censor whatever you wish without the majority of people being able to notice the changes. Some people may conduct searches, e.g. on a mass-massacre in a certain country, and see certain sites. Others, the majority, may not see them, and Google can simply claim that their algos have selected "better results" for those folks. And when the political leader fires up Google in front of the press, showing a perfectly innocent face, he may search for a certain term and find even the most critical pages (while the majority of his people won't).
That's the PERFECT cover for any manipulation. It's truly disgusting.
Alas, the "these search results have been altered to meet local laws" statement at the bottom of a SERP can be removed, makign the user interface even better and more easy to use.
We've seen some weird referrals lately but no real changes in traffic on a seasonally adjusted basis.
