Google Tracking User Experience Data via Safe Search?

[elguiri]

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System: The following 2 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4745478.htm [webmasterworld.com] by goodroi - 9:58 am on Jun 25, 2015 (utc -5)

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Has anyone heard the rumor that Google uses data from its Safe Search service, installed in most major browsers by default, to build user experience data? i.e. Safe Search is a spy tool.

Not saying it's true, haven't verified it myself and haven't heard it repeated frequently.

Any insights? Do you think is plausible/technically reasonable?

[Nutterum]

The question is moot @elguiri. If they are, we can't do anything about it. If they are not, nothing changes. Either way it is in the same boat as the "Is the sky falling?" question, so I would not worry much about it...unless you are a fan of digital tin-foil hats, in which case, good luck.

[goodroi]

There are many possible ways that Google is grabbing data for user experience. If I was Google, had a few billion dollars and over 15 years experience of dealing with spammers, I would grab user experience data from multiple sources. This way you can cross reference the data to identify possible manipulation or other anomalies. I would worry less about how Google pulls user experience data and more about what that means to your business model.

Some very old sites were built with the concept of "ugly sites make more money" (bad sites made users click on the ads to escape). Sites like that suffer greatly with user experience being added to the ranking algo. Poor quality affiliate sites? They are in similar trouble. If you have a high quality affiliate site that is providing a value added service, you should be able to generate enough usage signals to be ok.

[webcentric]

It would be surprising to me if they weren't collecting/analyzing/making decisions base on this data. As @goodroi states, it's not how or where the data is collected that's important. It's the "how it's being used to classify/rank your web properties" that matters.

[elguiri]

unless you are a fan of digital tin-foil hats, in which case, good luck.

Actually, I am! Accept the point though.

[toidi]

If goog has a hand in the code then it is tracking/watching/spying or whatever terminology you wish to use. There is too much money involved not to.