Mar 9, 2012 at 10:00am ET by Danny Sullivan

Personalized search? Both Google and Bing will tell you that it provides better results. But two-thirds say they don't care. They view personalized search as a "bad thing," a new survey finds. Nearly three-quarters also view gathering data to personalize results to be a privacy invasion. The findings come out of a survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Around 2,000 adults in the US were questioned between January 20 and February 19 of this year as part of a wide-ranging poll about search engine use, though fewer may have answered particular questions. Personalized Sea [...]

Bing Gets More Personal With Adaptive Search

Sep 14, 2011 at 4:07pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Bing has announced at SMX East today a new personalization feature named adaptive search. It seems a lot like Google's previous query feature but supposedly, it goes well beyond just the previous query. Bing said the "more you search, the more Bing can learn" and thus adapts the search results for YOU based on your past searches - not just your immediate previous search. Here is a video that explains it, we hope to have more information on this new feature soon: Video: Adapting Search to You Note, it is rolling out slowly over the next few days in the US. Stefan from Bing add [...]

SMX East Keynote: A Conversation With Eli Pariser

Sep 14, 2011 at 8:54am ET by Matt McGee

Good morning! Welcome to day two of our SMX East Conference in New York City. We're beginning today with a keynote conversation with Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, a book in which Pariser argues that search personalization leads to users being unaware of viewpoints and opinions that are different than their own. We should be getting started at the top of the hour, so feel free to refresh and/or come back to follow along with the discussion. Chris Sherman and Danny Sullivan will be taking care of duties guiding the conversation. Chris has just introduced Eli and we're beginning [...]

Google News Gets A Bit More Personal

Apr 21, 2011 at 7:53pm ET by Matt McGee

Google has added a pair of features today that make Google News a little more personal. First, the "News for you" section of Google News now includes stories based on your previous Google News activity. If you click on a lot of articles about a certain topic, this section will begin to show more articles on that topic. Second, the right column has a new feature called "Recommended Sections" that also uses your news history to suggest new topics to add to your customized Google News homepage. These personalized news features can be disabled by using the "Standard US Edition" of Goo [...]

Bing Results Get Localized & Personalized

Feb 10, 2011 at 12:00pm ET by Danny Sullivan

The idea of "normal" search results died a little more today, as Bing has begun delivering personalized listings depending on a searcher's location or past search history. Google has already been doing the same for several years. Local Results Until today, everyone searching at Bing within the United States generally saw the same results. Now, the city you're searching from can make a difference. For example, the search on the left below is where Bing detected my location as being near Los Angeles. On the right, I changed my settings to simulate being in New York: You can see that [...]

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