OpenSearch Plugin Ensures Your Google Results Are Not Personalized

Jun 15, 2007 at 9:26am ET by Barry Schwartz

The other day we reported about a way to turn off Google Personalized Search Results, which required you to add “&pws=0″ to the end of your search string.

Now, you no longer need to remember to do that. You can install an OpenSearch plugin on your Firefox or IE7 browser that does this for you. Go to the Google Search Plugin without Personalized Search page and install the appropriate version. I was waiting for someone to put this together — thanks Joost de Valk.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

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4 COMMENTS ON OpenSearch Plugin Ensures Your Google Results Are Not Personalized

BlendahTom, June 15th, 2007 at 10:56 am ET:

hmmm seems to me if someone was that unhappy w/ that option from Google they wouldn’t be using G Search at all…

WebOptimist, June 15th, 2007 at 10:40 pm ET:

I’m grabbing it right now. Sometimes I’m not even aware that I’m logged into my Google account and I, for one, didn’t ask for personalized search and don’t want it.

Thanks for posting the plugin.

Richard

Kaila Colbin, June 17th, 2007 at 4:58 am ET:

Thanks, Barry; I’m sure this will be useful for many people who choose not to opt into personalized search.

To the general community reading this, particularly those of you looking to turn personalized search off, what is it you don’t like about it? I don’t work for Google—far from it—my question stems more from a desire to make sure that we are making informed decisions.

If, for example, you turn personalized search off because you’re opposed to your history being tracked, I think it’s important to let you know that your history will be tracked whether or not you’ve got personalized search turned on.

If tracking history isn’t the problem, though, what don’t you like about personalized search?

Thanks and best regards,
Kaila Colbin

SEOidiot, July 27th, 2007 at 11:34 am ET:

I think this is much easier using a bookmarklet to add a button that you just click, heres how to do that

http://www.seoidiot.com/seoblog/bookmarklets-to-add-simple-logic-to-your-search-the-danny-sullivan-way.html

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