Google Search With Personalised Results, Google , People and Pages

[engine]

Google Search With Personalised Results, Google+, People and Pages [insidesearch.blogspot.com]

We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships. We began this transformation with Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step in this direction by introducing three new features:


1.Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page;
2.Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and,
3.People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.

Search plus Your World will become available over the next few days to people who are signed in and searching on [google.com...] in English.

[Robert Charlton]

Hitler is mad about this change

If a fellow is sitting by himself in front of the computer, laughing to the point of tears while watching that video, does that mean he's a geek?

It was pretty funny. Perhaps even non-geeks will get some of it. Eg, they'll get at least part of this....

I just want my old search results back. When I search for Katy Perry, I expect to get her Facebook page and her latest tweets, not her empty Google+ page. I knew she and Russell Brand wouldn't last.

[Savanadry]

Is this why for the last week or so I've been searching G, I see the top one and think yes, that looks like what I'm after and in a flash the page refreshes with a new list of mostly generic 'standard' results which really don't answer my query, infact if I wanted to go to those sites I would just type them in.

EG. This week I've been looking for some help on a coding problems, I don't want to go to wordpress codex, that site drives me crazy. I want to go to a small hobby site (don't care if it's monetised or not) where the author has had the same coding problem as me and has written up their solution to it in laymans terms.

This used to be the beauty of google - finding small sites with exactly what you are looking for.

It now seems for me, they return the results for the useful sites with exact matches for the text I type in, and then in a flash my social links / browsing history kicks in, they remove those useful results and replace them with results for large sites with pages on that theme, which was NOT what I'm looking for.

It's quite funny really, that 1 or 2 second delay before the standard results kick in has me repeatedly searching and trying to click fast enough or remember the name of the site before the other results kick in.

Well, not that funny, after a few searches I gave up and went to Bing.

[HuskyPup]

MODS - If this needs a new thread please move.

Hopefully this is a simple question with a simple answer.

I have several gmail accounts that I use for corporate back-ups, i.e. all incoming mails are copied there. Maybe it's time to delete them all since my Bat e-mail client easily does all this?

I do not use them for anything else and I certainly do not use any type of Google account whilst using the web, I always log-out of AdSense straight after using it.

I don't use any social sites whatsoever.

Insofar as I am aware my gmail accounts are fairly well locked down, do I need to do or change anything?

Is there anything specific to look for?

[tedster]

I have a similar situation Husky - and even have a long list of sites in my WMT. I'm not seeing any issues at all. I have personal history paused and don't search while logged in on the same browser anyway.

[sundaridevi]

@HuskyPup. I've noticed that recently, sometimes after i've logged into a Google account, it still gives personalized web results after I've logged out. I'm talking about the pre-G+ personalized web search variety.

To avoid this, you need to add the &pws=0 to your query string to NOT get personalized web results. But even this is becoming difficult with real-time search results. tedster's solution sounds best, avoid it by searching on a completely different browser. Otherwise to be sure you don't have any pws whatsoever, you have to quit the browser to clear the session.

[HuskyPup]

I principally use three browsers, Firefox and Seamonkey both of which delete all cookies etc when shut down and Opera which I do not accept any cookies for whatsoever.

levo posted this excellent link for ad cookies the other day which is supported by many advertisers:

[aboutads.info...]

Needless to say one needs to go to the site and opt out every day when using Firefox and Seamonkey like I do...yay, a couple of slurps of coffee:-)

It definitely seems to work well.

[StoutFiles]

That's pretty bold, even a little rude. Your Google squeezing out the little guy theory has already been shared ad nauseum, thanks. [

How is it a theory? Have you not been paying attention to anything Google has been doing the past couple years? Whether it's purely intentional for income, or what Google thinks are better search results, the little guy IS getting squeezed out. I'm not the little guy whining about it; I'm the guy reading the sob stories and following the trends.

The day Google became a publicly traded company was the day Google did what was best for their shareholders. Good search results only exist to keep people coming back; if those results can be tweaked to improve income, they will do it.

[tedster]

And yet, that analysis (which certainly contains a major chunk of truth) can also be the little guy's cop-out. Small business still can be effective online and grow their free Google traffic. But if they assume that Google just wants to kill them off - then they fall into despair. That's not a good place to be effective.

I've worked with giant corporations and very small businesses. I know of industries where two competitors are without a doubt the leaders - top-of-mind household names who cannot break into the first page for their most important non-branded keywords. Both still face major challenges in SEO, yet both can still succeed.

When it comes to this "Search Plus Personalized" change, it will definitely take away some of the space from conventional organic results for some searches. However, I think this search integration is extremely premature. There's just not enough interest and use of Google+ to make it effective, even for those who want to see their circle's recommendations. It looks desperate to me - a very frightened and heavy-handed change that is almost anti-social.

[Reno]

Good search results only exist to keep people coming back; if those results can be tweaked to improve income, they will do it.

I totally agree, and believe they will continually seek to find the line where if they cross it, they'll lose income or users or both. Once they find the line where the income stays the highest, and the user tally is at least stable, they'll stay in that zone, even if the search results suffer. They have learned what TV programmers have learned, that the public will tolerate mediocrity if it is spoon fed to them slowly, over time. I am not saying that they want mediocrity ~ I'm saying they will accept mediocrity IF profits remain high. The latest change is, IMO, proof of that statement.

........................

[sundaridevi]

It looks desperate to me - a very frightened and heavy-handed change that is almost anti-social.

Yeah! Luckily for Google, Facebook seems to want to keep everybody inside Facebook. If Facebook put an ounce of effort into promoting websearch from inside Facebook (i.e. promote Bing search), Google's share would start to evaporate over night. But I would love to see a world where Bing had 45% market share, Google 45% and the others combined 10%

While it is getting harder for the small guy, it's still the easiest place in the whole world of IT for the small guy to play. Even for IPhone apps, it's hard to make a splash now, just 5 years into it. Information Technology gives increasing returns of scale and that means more Microsofts, Googles and Facebooks will keep coming faster and in larger number, so it will keep getting harder in every niche. For all of us that means, move fast, take risks and junk stuff that doesn't work.

[StoutFiles]

And yet, that analysis (which certainly contains a major chunk of truth) can also be the little guy's cop-out. Small business still can be effective online and grow their free Google traffic. But if they assume that Google just wants to kill them off - then they fall into despair. That's not a good place to be effective.

I'm not advocating giving up. I'm strongly suggesting that Google NOT be your main source of traffic. If you depend on Google to keep your business afloat, it will fail sooner or later. Diversify everyone.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

We’re transforming Google

BOOM - that is how you destroy a perfectly dominant search engine, by making transformations your users did not ask for and many (most?) do not want.

Fact - if you wanted to ask a friends opinion instead of searching on Google you would call them up or message them directly... not type a question into a search box. I Google things where I am specifically NOT seeking a friends advice... my friends aren't all knowledgeable in my every interest but now Google's watching our interactions :/

As for being a major source of traffic to count on - lower your expectations.

edit: A side effect of this change will benefit forums that promote Google+, specifically those who incorporate google profiles on their forum. Why? Because you'll have a large group of people interested in a particular subject all linked together by Google making the forum return as top result for them all.

Forums just got a leg up, serps to be turned upside down in 6 months. Not a great thing considering you will be moving your forum base over to a Google+ base and they are already regulars... not new blood who now cannot find you as easily.