Comments on: Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results

By: littlelake

littlelake — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:08:07 +0000

Zoe, I also realized this. Without knowing I was logged into my google account, I was all the sudden #1 for all the sites I do SEO for. I logged out to do some reporting, and went to compose the reports on the sudden rise in ranking…when I quickly realized that the results were way off when I was not logged into my google account. Very confusing for SEO folks that periodically check google results for the sites we monitor…because of course the one we take care of will always show top results since google see those sites as our preference.

By: zoe

zoe — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:36:45 +0000

I also find this feature recent days. I enter a query in Google search box and after I login my Google account, I enter the same query. But the two results are different. The feature may be convinent to ordinary people, but it influences your perception of search engine rankings.

By: sailingbert

sailingbert — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:18:08 +0000

Have done some research about differences in results with and within signed in.
Results:

http://sailingbert.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/google-personalized-search-nothing-personal-about-it-sofar/

By: jimmcbean

jimmcbean — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:08:15 +0000

@Dr-Adam – good point.

Broadly speaking from an SEO perspective, depending on how big a factor history plays, I guess this consolidates sites / pages popularity that have built up a high SERP in the past making it more difficult for smaller players to break in. In this way, my search is progressively becoming less diversified the more and more I search where Google assumes that all previous searches that were clicked were essentially ‘good’ or noteworthy for the future. How does Google decide if this click decision made simply by remembering what I clicked on was a good one?

Hasn’t personalised search just heightened the importance of SEO overnight and the need for webmasters to rank highly this second / minute / hour / day / week because locking in a high rank today means increasing your chance of a returning visitor tomorrow.

From a usability perspective, I can see transaction cost advantages to this as it helps me to quickly find pages that I may have forgotten from previous searches, or didn’t bookmark – much like just integrating my history onto page results for easy access. I would like to know how in effect my search is being influenced by my history.

I much preferred the wikisearch idea where diggs were used instead. This to me seems like a much more sensible way to at least influence rank to help find the best results as diggs are aggregated and positive experiences are validated. This doesn’t chain the little man either because if he has something better to offer then the merits of her offering will presumably emerge over time and bubble to the top.

In addition, perhaps this decision may flutter a few hearts in the domaining world where high-ranked domains on G are now worth more in the second hand market.

By: Pamela Falle

Pamela Falle — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:45:10 +0000

It’s definitely nice to know that finally we can see how google really make it up to increasing its subscribers. Thus, we can easily improve our sites’ ranking.

By: Dr-Adam

Dr-Adam — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:45:13 +0000

From an SEO provider standpoint, I am thinking it is going to really change things for clients who like to look up their sites and click through in the SERPS. Suddenly they will be ranking better and better! (however that will not be reflected in any kind of traffic increase of course). Lets just hope none of our clients are clicking through to their competition…..I am thinking a company memo to them is in order!

By: suzukik

suzukik — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:09:31 +0000

@evilgreenmonkey,
Matt Cutts confirmed it on twittter.
http://twitter.com/mattcutts/statuses/6356230570

By: evilgreenmonkey

evilgreenmonkey — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:41:59 +0000

Has anyone confirmed whether &pws=0 still overrides personalization in the signed-out search results?

By: Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 06:50:54 +0000

“On the flip-side, people might start instinctively skipping the first few entries if they see them on nearly every search….”

I would expect their clicks to cause the listings to churn a bit if that happens; or else they’ll just figure out other queries to use.

By: writingferret

writingferret — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 05:51:10 +0000

I’m really not sure quite what I think of this. I very much agree with levelanalytics…they said exactly what I was thinking. Very anti-Google to AVOID introducing new content to the end user. They just might work themselves into a hole where people go to Google for the familiar, and elsewhere for the new, which would not at all be good for Google.

On the flip-side, people might start instinctively skipping the first few entries if they see them on nearly every search. I mean, consider how many topics will have a relevant page on Amazon, or eBay. Pretty much anything? Eventually people are just going to skip those, I would think.

I fail to see, though, how search engine spammers could really take advantage of this.