After months of requests from its users, Google has finally added a way to turn off its SearchWiki tool. But, while you can “check out” of using SearchWiki, your customized search results don’t leave. More on that in a moment.

Users can turn SearchWiki off (and on) by clicking on the “Preferences” link next to the Google search box. Down near the bottom of the preferences page, you’ll see a check box that disables SearchWiki.

But all this checkbox does is remove the ability to use SearchWiki; if you’ve voted pages up or down, or left comments in the SearchWiki system, those will still be in effect while you’re logged in. Here’s a screenshot from my Google account:

The two sites I previously voted up remain at the top of the search results with the green up arrow, but the SearchWiki buttons are gone from all the other pages below. A Google spokesperson tells us that this is by design:

“The SearchWiki preferences setting to ‘Hide the ability to share, promote, remove, or add your own results’ does not delete user SearchWiki customizations. We expect that users who do not use the SearchWiki feature may wish to hide the controls, so we provide them with this option. However, if users have already made the effort to promote and comment on pages, we expect those users would like to maintain the benefit of their customizations by default.”

Fair enough. So, if you want to disable SearchWiki and remove all of your previous customizations, you’ll need to turn SearchWiki on, then use the link at the bottom of a search results page that says “See all my SearchWiki notes.”

From there, you can undo what you’ve done before and then go back to the Preferences page to turn SearchWiki off.

History

Almost immediately after SearchWiki launched last year, the cries began from some users who wanted a way to turn it off and avoid the visual clutter it added to the search results page. At first, Google said they had no intention of offering an opt-out mechanism. Here’s a November 2008 quote from SearchWiki product manager Cedric DuPont:

“While users don’t have the option of turning off SearchWiki, they do have the option not to use the feature. By turning off the feature entirely, people will never get used to the new offering or see how it might be useful to them. We encourage people to try it out.”

Public pressure continued, and a couple weeks after that, Google’s Marissa Mayer finally said Google will add a method to disable SearchWiki.

(tip Google Operating System)

Brian Ussery noticed Google has changed the way you can share your SearchWiki notes in the search results. If you are logged in to Google and you have notes on search results, you can share those notes with friends. Here is how:

(1) Search on the query at Google and the results should show up with a link at the top to “share these notes”:

(2) Click the link and a URL will show up in a text box, copy and paste the link and send it to a friend:

(3) Here is a preview of that result for you to see:

Last night I discovered reports via WebmasterWorld that shows Google testing a flavor of Google SearchWiki directly on the paid ads, also known as AdWords results.

Here is a screen capture of that in action:

I have emailed Google for a statement and I will update this post when I receive one.

If you want to discuss this with other SEMs, just the Sphinn thread.

Postscript: Here is a statement I received from a Google spokesperson:

As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, we are currently running an experiment in which users can customize the ads that appear in the “Sponsored Links” section of the search results page by deleting ad results. This experimental feature is only visible to a small number of users, and we have no news to announce at this time regarding developments in our AdWords product offering.

Google Operating System discovered a new experiment Google is running named Preferred Sites. In short, users who are in this experiment will be able to add a list of sites in their search preferences page as their “preferred sites.” Google will then use that information to show those sites in a higher ranking order in the Google results for that user, when it makes sense. Let me share some examples of how this works.

If you set cnn.com to be a preferred site and you are logged in to your Google account and conduct a search for space station, Google may bump up a result from CNN to the top of the Google search results. In addition, Google will clearly label why it is the top result, with a “My preferred site” label before the page’s URL. Here is a screen capture:

Google explains that you must be part of the experiment to see this option in your search preferences. Personally, I do not see it. In addition, Google said you can be as specific as a subdomain, so if you want results from CNN, just use cnn.com, but if you want results only from money.cnn.com, you can do that as well.

This does remind me of the Google Coop, but it’s clearly different in that the results are not exactly tailored; they are promoted. In addition, this is an extension of Google’s SearchWiki.

For additional examples and screen captures, see Google Operating System.

Michael Arrington went on a rant about Google testing sound effect in the new Google SearchWiki. In short, Michael is upset that Google would spend the time adding sound effects over adding an option to turn off SearchWiki. I do agree with with Michael on this, but we do know that feature is coming in early 2009.

But if you watch Michael’s video, using SearchWiki becomes addictive when you hear the sound effects – at least to me. Watch the video:

I can see searchers hear the sound and then be led to remove or promote more results, because it makes it more fun.

However, I think this is a limited test. When I tried on both a PC and a Mac, on both Firefox, IE and Safari, I did not hear any sound effects:

Matt Cutts of Google did comment saying sound is not a new thing. And Matt is right, Philipp Lenssen reported it back when it first launched. So this must be a limited test to some users. I think, if you have SearchWiki on, keep those sound effects. But clearly, adding a way for a searcher to opt out of the SearchWiki feature is a big win for the Google searcher.

TechCrunch has coverage of Google’s Marissa Mayer talk at Le Web conference in Paris, France. In that talk, Mayer said SearchWiki will gain an option to let users turn it off and reiterated statements that Google’s previously made, that SearchWiki data might be used in the future to help rank ordinary search results.

After SearchWiki launched, a number of bloggers including TechCrunch were vocal in wanting a way to turn the feature off, since once it is enabled, there is no removing it. However, Google stuck to its guns that an opt-out wouldn’t be offered any time soon. Now that’s changed. Mayer promised to add a way to turn off SearchWiki within the first quarter of next year.

As for ranking, at launch Google said to Search Engine Land and others that SearchWiki might get used to influence rankings in the future, even though it currently is not.

Mayer explained that if “thousands of people” would remove a result from a search results page, then it might make sense to remove the page from everyone’s results. TechCrunch promised to post a video of the interview with Marissa later, so check the site later for her exact words.

Four days after it launched, Google SearchWiki continues to attract much attention from critics and fans alike. Meanwhile, there remain questions on how it all works, under the hood. Below, a follow-up to my Google SearchWiki 101: An Illustrated Guide article from last week, answering some of the remaining questions. Oh, and for those looking for a SearchWiki opt-out, the short answer is don’t expect one anytime soon.

I’ve organized this article as a Q&A, though the questions and answers are paraphrased from the conversation I had today with Cedric Dupont, Google’s SearchWiki product manager; Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management at Google and Google software engineer Corin Anderson. Any exact quotes are noted and cited.

SearchWiki should now be showing for everyone who searches at Google and has their language set to English, correct?

Yes. There are a few cases where people are using proxies or older browsers and not seeing SearchWiki. In a very tiny number of cases, some accounts might not have been SearchWiki-enabled. Those still having problems should post a report to the Google Web Search Help Group.

What happened with SearchWiki disappearing during some of this past weekend?

That was a hiccup, and we apologize to those users who couldn’t have their SearchWiki on Saturday afternoon. We restored it so folks could SearchWiki to their heart’s content by Saturday night.

Some people are being quite vocal online about wanting an opt-out from the feature. Once it is enabled, you’re stuck with it. Is an opt-out coming?

Dupont said he’s noted that some people want to turn it off citing “visual clutter” as being a potential problem. However, he said that’s this seems far from a universal complaint:

“Before we launched SearchWiki, hundreds of thousands of people tested it and the feedback was positive. We’ve also used this feedback to improve SearchWiki along the way.”

But why not just let people opt-out if they want to, as they can opt-out from other Google products — or how they can use the search preferences page to control number of results shown, popping-open search listings in their own windows, enabling subscribed links and other options.

“While users don’t have the option of turning off SearchWiki, they do have the option not to use the feature. By turning off the feature entirely, people will never get used to the new offering or see how it might be useful to them. We encourage people to try it out,” Dupont said.

I suppose. To some degree, we saw this after Google Universal Search rolled out last year. Some people kept asking for a way to turn it off. Today, I rarely hear that voiced.

Google personalized search is a better example. Some people — especially search marketers — wanted a way to toggle it on or off. Google didn’t care. At best, it advised a way to hack out the URL as a way to do it. Various third party tools are out there that allow this, as well.

Google recently rolled out search customization notices, which allow you to “toggle off” results when they are tailored to previous queries or geographic data. But when it comes to personalized search — something where some people have been actively requesting a similar on/off toggle — that’s not provided. As I wrote in my story about the search customization notices:

I wish next to the More Details option that Google would have also just placed a “Pause” button, so that personalized results could be paused and “normal” results viewed easily, without requiring a log-out.

I can understand the logic in forcing people to use something rather than letting them immediately opt-out, if you’re convinced it’s better for them. As I joked with Google on the call, it’s the kind of argument I’ll do with my kids when they say they don’t want to go to something like ski school. I send them anyway, despite the complaints, and in the end, they’re glad they know how to ski.

But that’s also the public relations problem Google faces, in not offering an opt-out to those who want it. Google comes across as some type of parent telling its children that it knows best. But its users (mostly) aren’t children, and no one want to be treated like one. Google should offer the opt-out, both to solve the PR issue and because I think it would be the right thing to do for even those few users out there who don’t want this.

All hope isn’t lost. Dupont said that Google will watch usage closely. If they detect many people might want an opt-out option, then it still might come down the line. “Based on a few days of feedback, we don’t want to rush into changing this.”

What type of measurements will indicate this need — a mass increase in people staying signed out of Google? Google simply said it had a wide variety of “user-happiness metrics” that it monitors.

FYI, those who want a third-party solution can use the SearchWiki On/Off Greasemonkey script for Firefox to toggle SearchWiki on and off.

It looks like it would be easy for people to flood a public SearchWiki notes page with submissions of pages all from the same web site. Are you considering clustering results similar to web search, where only one or two listings from the same domain will show?

We’ll take a look at that.

Are you considering a browsable guide to all the SearchWiki notes? Perhaps a way to drill into pages by topic or see the most popular SearchWiki notes by views or save activity?

No “table of contents” style page like that exists today. That sounds like a fun feature to have, but we wanted to focus on getting the core functionality launched. But a “What is the world doing with SearchWiki” page might come in the future.

How come I cannot see all comments that have been made even when clicking on the comments link?

Currently we only show a limited number of comments, and it will take a bit of time before we provide a way to browse all of them.

Is it me, or was the delete comment option not working?

It wasn’t you. It’s working now.

Can you explain more about how the thumb-up / thumb-down icons work with comments?

These are ways to give us feedback about a comment, separately from the extreme option of reporting a comment as inappropriate. Thumbing up doesn’t mean a comment will go to the top of the list for you or anyone; thumbing down doesn’t mean a comment will be removed. However, thumb voting is used as part of many signals in determining the order of comments.

So clicking thumbs down doesn’t report a comment for review?

No, it only makes a separate “Flag as inappropriate comment” link appear. To then report a comment, you have to click on that link and fill in a form.

So what’s considered an inappropriate?

Things might include spam, unauthorized copyrighted content, abusive or objectionable content, illegal content or advocating hate or violence. However, people can also note other reasons. If enough people flag a comment, we may remove it.

What determines the top comment shown? Is it most recent, as it seems to be?

There are many different signals that come into play.

There are already concerns about comments, such as this spam comment that made a TV sex station’s URL that showed up under the TechCrunch listing on the SearchWiki public notes page for TechCrunch. What are you doing about this?

We’re no longer displaying any comments by default, which we think will help.

How about issues where people might pretend to be other people and make recommendations in comments, such as here where it looks like Google’s Matt Cutts is endorsing a particular web site when in reality, it’s just someone with a Google account using his name.

I’d emailed this one to Google after our talk today, and they sent back:

This is a lot like what you see on the web already: anyone can choose to sign a comment “Danny.” It’s up to the reader to decide how to interpret this source.

And as Matt responded to this in the comments section of this specific blog: “That’s pretty funny, but it’s not unique. I’ve also seen fake blog comments, fake MySpace pages, and fake MyBlogLog people where people pretended to be me.”

Note that “Matt Cutts” comments twice in that post. The first one probably is him; the second isn’t. And agreed, it is possible for anyone to imitate anyone else. But then again, Google made an exceptionally large issue in launching Knol that it wanted to help people know the “real” people who stood behind content.

With it now allowing comments to be associated with search listings — on pages that might have more circulation than Knol itself — perhaps its worth a rethink in allowing unverified comments to exist. At the very least, the names of those commenting should be hyperlinked back to the Google user profile pages. At the moment, they are not.

It feels like for all the benefits to SearchWiki, you’ve created something of a new online PR reputation nightmare for people to worry about. Anyone can comment about anything, and there’s no real filtering that seems to go on. Any thoughts, advice or comments to those who are concerned?

This was another one I sent after the initial interview, and Google emailed back:

In terms of advice, the need for websites to be vigilant about what people say about them – and on them – long precedes SearchWiki, and is as old as the web itself.

We’ve always been supportive of tools that allow people to better express themselves online, and SearchWiki is no exception.

At the same time, in cases where people express themselves improperly or illegally against websites, we’ve made simple tools readily available for websites so they can take action appropriately.

Are there plans to make it easier for people to delete items they’ve voted on or commented on in SearchWiki rather than having to individually “restore” or “delete comment” for each item?

We’ll look at actual usage, and if it looks like many people are trying to erase what they’ve done this way, we’ll take action to make it easier.

Right now, you show what someone searched for if they comment on a URL, even if that URL is showing up for a different search. As I wrote, there might be a privacy issue with this. Might this change?

The problem is, in these situations, if we don’t show the original query, the comment might not make sense in context.

What determines the order of how things are listed on public SearchWiki notes pages? It doesn’t appear to be most voted items come first. Instead, it feels more like things are ordered so that the first thing voted on has a better chance to be at the top of the list.

Much like the main search results page, we’re not talking much about how ranking works. However, voting is a key factor. You can see results at the top of these pages are the ones that many people have voted to the top of their own results and those not as high may have been removed.

We’re also still looking at the quality of the signals we use. Over time, we think the results in the public SearchWiki pages will get much cleaner, and quality will improve.

Why not show the names of those voting up certain pages, to help make it clear if there’s vote gaming going on?

It’s an interesting idea, and we thought about that early on. We’ve tried to strike a balance between privacy and sharing. I’m sure we’ll continue to explore the idea.

I appreciate the ability to save items I spot within search results. But why not give me a “Save” feature or make Google Bookmarks enabled in the search listings. It feels weird that I have to make something shoot to the top of the search results when I only really mean to remember it.

We did consider a save feature, and both saving and voting up are valid. We choose to go with the voting up for SearchWiki. But again, we are definitely listening to user feedback to help improve the feature.

How are people using it so far? Are they going to the public SearchWiki notes pages or more using it to keep a personal record?

The overwhelming majority of the use is on the [personal] search results page rather than the “All SearchWiki edits page”.

What’s Google’s goal in offering this?

“It’s a new way to empower users. You can remember answers to repeat queries. It lets you add your personal touch to our algorithms,” Wright said.

How about the community aspect?

We expect to see a few new things happening and some of them may involve communities that could evolve around certain topics or searches. Right now, we’ve given out a tool and are letting people use it in the way that makes the most sense for them,” said Dupont.

Google’s SearchWiki is off to a rough start in the user feedback/public relations department, and has already been knocked offline by some kind of technical issue. SearchWiki usage seems fair to strong, depending on the queries you’re looking at, but is it the type of usage Google wants? Let’s take a look at SearchWiki’s first handful of days out in the wild.

The Reviews Are In…

… and they’re not very good. TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington was one of the first to voice his complaints:

“This new stuff is a mess of arrows and troll comments and stuff moving around the page. That doesn’t make my search experience more useful. It makes it move to another search engine.”

Network World’s Brennan Slattery wondered what’s the point of several SearchWiki features:

“Once you get involved in SearchWiki’s features, it becomes frustratingly meta and throws chunks of logic out the window. You can comment on other user’s comments. You can add your own URLs to your searches. How does that make sense? If you’re searching for something, you shouldn’t already know the destination URL, and if you do, why are you searching? And if you’re continuously seeking the same exact thing, why not just bookmark the site?”

One Google user echoed a similar sentiment in the comments of a SearchWiki article on the Guardian’s web site: “This is useles (sic). If I want better search results, how about Google delivering them?”

On Friday, Search Engine Roundtable opened a poll that asks, “Is the average searcher ready for Google SearchWiki?” The current results are overwhelmingly in the “no” camp — 84% to just 16% “yes” votes.

By far the number one complaint so far about SearchWiki is that Google made it opt-in for all users, and there’s no logical way to turn it off. Yes, you can log out of your Google account and search without SearchWiki’s icons and buttons, but the general consensus is that having to logout isn’t much of a solution. Many Google users take issue with the lack of an opt-out mechanism — maybe no one more than search marketer Michael Gray, who gave Google some advice:

“Google can stop pushing out changes that don’t have an off switch. If they want everyone else to follow the “do what’s best for users” mantra they should follow their own advice, instead of just paying it lip service. Lead by setting an example, not by preaching from the pulpit.”

Danny Sullivan brought up the lack of a SearchWiki optout in his SearchWiki 101 article on Friday. If you want to turn off SearchWiki, there are posts on Google Operating System and facesaerch offering ways to do it.

But It’s Not All Negative

While there don’t appear to be many glowing reviews of SearchWiki, the feedback isn’t entirely negative. In his PC Magazine review, Michael Muchmore runs through how SearchWiki works and notes that “it’s nice to see Google innovating in its core offering.”

On Mashable, Paul Glazowski compared SearchWiki to its nearest competitor, Wikia Search, and noted that SearchWiki is by far the easier-to-use of the two:

“Google has a substantial leg up here. SearchWiki has had a largely seamless introduction, and the edit options are almost too easy to learn.

Wikia Search – It isn’t necessarily unattractive, but it’s considerably more complex. Which makes it a bit slower to operate.

Although the Mashable review doesn’t choose a winner, Glaazowski does say that Wikia Search is “the more capable of the two when it comes to search results customization and annotation.”

Web Worker Daily offers what’s probably one of the most positive reviews of SearchWiki, encouraging users to tell Google whenever they find “inappropriate/poorly ranked” search results, and saying that SearchWiki can make for more productive searchers if people use it the way it’s intended:

“More customizability means more productivity for web workers in the long run.”

The Spam Problem

But, how many people will use it the way Google intends? That’s the big question, and some users are already pointing out spam in SearchWiki’s commenting system. On the Reseo blog, Chris Thomas shows a screenshot of porn links being dropped into SearchWiki notes/comments page for the query [techcrunch]. Lauren Weinstein also wrote over the weekend that “significant abuse of the SearchWiki comments system has already begun.”

Steve Rubel chimed in, calling the “unfettered user editing” an “epic fail.”

“… of course people are going to run amok on the world’s biggest online stage! That’s like turning a kid with a massive sweet tooth loose in a giant candy store. It’s going to be a haven for spam.”

The Tech Problem

As if spam and user feedback wasn’t enough of a headache, Google also had to answer why SearchWiki went offline on Saturday. While some users hoped Google was pulling SearchWiki altogether, or at least changing the functionality to allow for an easier opt-out mechanism, no such luck. Google told TechCrunch on Saturday that it was just a bug and they were “really sorry” that SearchWiki went down.

The service was back up and running after a couple hours, but with no noticeable changes to the system.

Google SearchWiki — a new feature that allows you to move and comment on search results — has been out for less than a day, and it’s amazing to see how much confusion (as well as commentary) there is already developing. So below, some clarification on how it works, opportunities search marketers should consider, some privacy issues and ideas for improving it.

What is SearchWiki?

Go read our Google SearchWiki Launches, Lets You Build Your Own Search Results Page post! In short, it allows you to move a listing higher in the search results, or move a listing lower in the results or delete a listing altogether. You can also comment about search results you see, and others can view your comments. Also see Google’s help page about SearchWiki.

How do I get it? I don’t see any of these buttons!

You have to be logged in to Google. If you have a Gmail account, Google Web History account, any service that was enabled after you gave an email address to Google, that created a Google Account for you. From the Google home page or any search results page, click the “Sign in” link at the top right of the page. Now when you search, the buttons and options will appear.

I still don’t see the buttons!

OK, give it a few more days. The feature is still being rolled out. But everyone who has a Google Account will eventually see them.

How do I move something up?

Click on the little “up arrow” to the right of a search result, like this:

After I clicked, it moved it to the top of the page. I wanted it to be second or third, instead!

Yeah, that sucks. If you’ve never rated anything in a result, voting makes it number one by default. And if you “Down Arrow,” that pushes it to the bottom of the page. If you want something to be in second place, then you need to Up Arrow what you want to be in first. Once you have two or more voted items, you can then use the up-and-down arrows to move them around.

Think of it like this. SearchWiki results come first, and SearchWiki results are only the things you voted on. After that come “regular” search results. So if you vote on something, you’re sort of taking it out the “regular” results section and putting it on top. The more things you put on top, the more you can reshape that SearchWiki section.

Does all this mean SEO is dead? Anyone can make themselves have a top rank?

When you move listings around, only you see those changes. So if you make your own site number 1 when it was number 10, only you will see that change. Everyone else will still see it at number 10.

There are some search marketing opportunities, however. Keep reading!

What if I want to move something that’s on the second page?

No problem. Click the Up Arrow, and it will jump to the first page and give you a “Promoted to first page” message.

What do all those numbers means after I click on something?

Immediately after you vote on something, you’ll see some icons and numbers appear at the bottom of the listing, like this:

The first arrow icon shows how many other people have voted on this particular listing for that particular search, Google tells me. IE, in the example above, 142 people have voted TechCrunch up for a search on techcrunch. For a slightly different search, tech crunch, the number is only 18. That means only 18 people have voted up the TechCrunch listing for that search.

The second X icon, Google tells me, shows how many people have deleted that listing, for that search. If you’re wondering why 4 people might be deleting TechCrunch from the results for its own name, they were probably just playing around. Or perhaps they are a few haters.

Third, you’re shown the number of comments that have been made about a particular listing. Unlike votes, comments about a listing are associated with that listing no matter what search is done. Confused? Don’t worry, read on.

What’s up with adding results?

At the bottom of the page, click on the “Add a result” link. That will open up a new window where you can enter a URL:

After you enter it, the page will be located, then you can add it:

This is sort of a warp speed way to move a page up rather than paging through the results until you come across it.

What if Google doesn’t yet have a page? You can still add it, but you’ll probably just be adding the URL-only info for now, like this:

Note that as far as I can tell, you can only add one page per domain to the results. So those of you thinking about stuffing SearchWiki notes pages with only your material? You get one shot for one listing per account, so make it a good one.

If you’re evil, you could add more pages from your web site by using different Google Accounts. I’ve tested it — it works, and Google probably needs to close this loophole by listing only one page per domain in SearchWiki note pages, similar to how it does clustering/indented results in regular search.

NOTE: Google later told me a bug meant that only one page per domain, per account, could be added. This has been fixed.

I can delete results?

You sure can. Click on the X button next to a listing and poof (literally, poof — you’ll see a little cloud animation), the result is gone. The message, “Results you remove can be viewed at the bottom of the page message,” will briefly appear in its place.

At the bottom of the page, you’ll see what was removed. Here’s an example for when I removed Microsoft for a search on its name:

Note that the next time you do a search where previously you deleted some results, these won’t be shown at the bottom. Instead, you’ll just get a small message saying “You have removed results from this page” followed by a “+ Show them” link. Click on that to reveal what you’ve deleted.

I didn’t really mean to delete a result. How do a restore it?

View the results you’ve deleted at the bottom of the page, then click the “X Restore” option:

That puts it back at the very bottom of the regular results list.

I don’t want restored results to go to the bottom of the regular results. I want them to go right back where they were removed from!

Do your search again. The results you restored should returned to their “normal” order.

How do I comment on results?

There’s a little “thought bubble” icon. Click on that:

Then a little comment box will open up. Type your comment into that box and push the “Make a public comment” button:

Your comment will then appear below the listing:

When will I see that comment in the future?

You’ll see the comment any time you do a search and that particular listing — the exact URL you commented on — appears. In other words, it’s not tied to a particular search query. It’s tied to a particular URL itself.

For example, here’s a comment I made about the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, in a search for adwords keyword tool:

If I search for other things, such as adwords keywords or adword tool, I see the same listing in these different searches also with my comment. That’s handy. It’s a nice way to remember something you’ve noted about a site, should you see it appear in any searches you do.

Will others see my comments?

Yes. That’s why the button to post a comment says “Make a public comment,” to reinforce the fact that everyone can see your comments.

How do they see them? How can I see what others have commented about?

Your comments don’t appear to be shown to others when they do searches. But they are visible to those who to into the SearchWiki notes area.

Where’s this area? Sadly, there’s no home page for all the SearchWiki notes that have been created. Perhaps that will come in the future. Instead, you have to do a search, then look at the bottom of the page for the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link. Click on that:

If there’s no activity, you’ll see a “no edits” message:

If there have been edits, you’ll see any pages that have been voted on for that query, along with an option to view notes. Here’s how it looks for search engine land right now:

If you’ve made a comment, that will always show for you, in your view (others will see their comments in their views). Then you’ll also see other comments people have made. Only one of these will be shown by default (the most recent one, it appears), and to see the rest, you have to click on the comments link.

Unfortunately, things don’t seem to be working correctly. For example, TechCrunch has 79 comments currently, but when I click on the comments link, I only see 10 of them, in addition to mine:

Notice the three I’m pointing at. These are comments that have been made about the TechCrunch home page but in relation to other searches.

I made a comment and want to remove it!

Click edit to open the comment window, then click the “Delete comment” link. You’ll get a “Comment deleted” message.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to stick in my testing. I can rerun a search, and my comment appears again. Hopefully, this is a bug that will get solved quickly.

What’s with those thumbs up / thumbs down icons next to each comment?

You mean these?

The thumb icons appear to the right of each comment. If you think something’s inappropriate, you can thumb it down to have Google review and maybe delete the comment.

What’s inappropriate? All Google says for now is:

While viewing any comment, click the thumbs-down next to it to rate it as bad. You’ll see a red flag icon; click the flag to report a comment as inappropriate. A Google team will review the comment and, if necessary, take action.

And what’s a thumbs up do? Nothing that I can tell. It doesn’t save it to your own SearchWiki record. It seems to have no use. Indeed, the entire comment thumbing system seems to be not thought out fully yet.

Another glitch. You can vote on comments, but not on the one shown by default. For example, consider this comment that shows by default for TechCrunch:

What if this were something you considered “inappropriate?” Sorry, there’s no way to vote on it.

How do I see everything I’ve done?

Click the “See all my SearchWiki notes” link at the bottom of any Google search results page (it always will appear, if you’re signed in):

You’ll get to a My SearchWiki notes page like this:

Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t have published that. You can see I was searching for incontinence, playboy and porn on the blog of Google spam fighting czar Matt Cutts. Hey, it was all in the sake of testing out privacy, promise!

Well, only I can see this page. Well, at least that’s what Google tells me. Still, what if I get paranoid and want to remove items? No can do.

This is a seriously bad oversight. I mentioned the comments coming back despite me deleting them. That comment on a URL for “incontinence” in the screenshot above? I’ve deleted it maybe five times so far, and it still won’t go away. Bad. Plus, what if you’re wanting to manage your notes? You can’t delete an old topic in any way. Even if you restore results, that activity remains logged.

The system needs much better controls, similar to how Web History works (see Google Search History Expands, Becomes Web History) for more about that.

How do I turn it off entirely?

Sounds like you’ve been reading Michael Arrington’s rant over at TechCrunch. I agree with him, in part — some people will not find these options that useful, and they should be able to toggle them off. But SearchWiki does not appear as a “service” in your Google Accounts list that you can disable after switching it on. Other things like Web History can be toggled off. SearchWiki should be the same way — and it should also include a “Delete everything forever” option, like Web History does.

Should I be worried about privacy?

A bit. Google does tell you that your comments will be public, but some still might not realize this. They especially might not realize that if they do a search and comment on some URL, that comment will be public if that URL appears in SearchWiki pages for other searches.

Potentially, you might have searched for something embarrassing, made a public comment about a URL that on its own might not be so embarrassing. Then if that URL shows up in SearchWiki results for a different search — your comment, along with what you searched for to find it, will be shown.

Again, it should be clear to people that making a public comment on a search they do means they’re publishing what they searched for. But it might be better if Google allowed for private and public comments.

I’m confused about whether SearchWiki is tied to searches or URLs!

Yeah, so am I. That’s why I made up that question.

Look, it’s mainly tied to searches. When you move things around, you create a SearchWiki Notes page that’s tied to a particular search. It’s a way for you to reshape the regular results you see, plus see what others are reshaping for those results.

For example, in search for cars, I moved the Pixar film site for “Cars” to the top. Corresponding to that search is a SearchWiki notes page for cars, where I can just see pages that people have saving or commenting on from that search.

Comments, as I’ve explained, are tied to exact URLs. You’ll see comments about a URL found and made for one search result appearing for other search results.

Seems like lots of people might start viewing SearchWiki notes pages for a particular search. Does that mean I should be voting for my own site, to try and place them in the notes.

I would. And will. Search Engine Land is a leading site about search engines, but we’re currently listed around 45th in Google for a search on search engines. That sucks.

I think more and more people will start checking out the SearchWiki notes for a particular search, since that’s an easy link to click on at the bottom of the page. So if you’re not in the “regular” results, that’s a way to get into some alternative results that might get traffic.

For example, go to the SearchWiki page for search engines, and we’re number three! To get there, all I had to do was vote on my site.

How do I get to be at the very top of SearchWiki notes pages?

Honestly, I have no idea. So far, I see no particular pattern. I’m following up with Google on this.

Will this help improve my rank with regular results?

Google says no, at least not right now. From what Matt McGee wrote here on Search Engine Land yesterday, after talking with Google:

Dupont didn’t completely rule out the possibility that user data from SearchWiki may someday impact regular search rankings. I asked what would happen if 10,000 people all added “Matt McGee’s Widget Page” to their own results for the phrase [widget]. “We’re always looking at user data as a signal,” Dupont says. And in a situation like that? “We’re not closing any doors.”

That’s another reason to vote for yourself. Its your vote — why not cast it in your favor.

I’d warn against trying to game Google with votes from sock puppet accounts or perhaps even from trying to get yourself listed on thousands of SearchWiki notes pages. As with all things, when people to go extremes, Google policing action and new guidelines quickly follow. Be smart, be appropriate, be relevant and you’ll probably be fine.

Postscript: See the follow-up to this article which answers some of the questions raised plus drills more into SearchWiki: Q&A With Google On SearchWiki (Don’t Expect An Opt-Out Soon).

Google will announce today (Update: official announcement) the launch of SearchWiki, a major addition to its user interface that allows users to edit search results. When using SearchWiki, you can re-order, remove, or add web pages to the search results for any query. You can also add notes to specific listings. You have to be logged in to a Google account so that the changes you make will be saved and shown the next time you run the same search.

“This is a way for search to adapt to a more interactive experience,” says Google Product Manager Cedric Dupont. “We ran a bunch of experiments, and the response was overwhelmingly positive from our users. They asked for this feature.”

How SearchWiki Works

Two light-colored icons next to each listing let you reorder the search results. An up arrow lets you move a result higher on the page; an X will remove the result. After you’ve moved a result higher, a down arrow shows up so you can move it back down the page. The icons turn bright green after an edit to remind you that you edited the result. A fourth icon in the shape of a text bubble lets you leave comments on any listing; anyone can see the comments you make on a separate page. Here’s what a typical search results page might look like:

There’s an “Add a result” link at the bottom of the search results page that let’s you add web pages to the search results. There are also links at the bottom of the page to show and restore listings you’ve removed, and to see all other SearchWiki changes (in aggregate) and comments made by other users. Here’s what that public notes page looks like:

SearchWiki is turned on by default for everyone logged in to a Google account. If you don’t like SearchWiki, you can ignore the icons or you can make them go away by logging out and then continuing to search.

How Smart Is SearchWiki?

If you’re logged in, SearchWiki will remember changes you make when you search again for the same exact word or phrase. On occasion, it may also remember changes when you search for a very close match; i.e., if you re-order the search results for the word [widget], SearchWiki will likely show you the re-ordered results again if you search for [widgets]. But, if your next search is for [interesting widget], it will probably not show the changes you already made for [widget].

“We’re trying to be smart on this issue,” Dupont says.

SEO Implications?

Google emphasizes that changes made in the SearchWiki interface will have no impact on the traditional ranking of web pages. If you put your own site in the 1st position for your primary keywords, you’re the only Google user who’ll see your site at the top of the rankings. Your site will, however, be included when users click the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link at the bottom of the page; that link leads to another page that shows what results other users have re-ordered, removed, or added.

Still, Dupont didn’t completely rule out the possibility that user data from SearchWiki may someday impact regular search rankings. I asked what would happen if 10,000 people all added “Matt McGee’s Widget Page” to their own results for the phrase [widget]. “We’re always looking at user data as a signal,” Dupont says. And in a situation like that? “We’re not closing any doors.”

Future Development?

The massive amount of user data that Google will collect from searchers that use SearchWiki should allow Google to further expand the service’s functionality. You can imagine Google suggesting pages to add when a user removes a result s/he doesn’t like, for example. “Who knows what the future will hold,” Dupont said, when asked about future development plans.

The service, which some users have been using on an experimental basis for about a year, will be rolled out today. Google says it should be fully available to all users by the end of the day.

Postscript: See also now from Search Engine Land, Google SearchWiki 101: An Illustrated Guide.