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Google Like/Don’t Like: Move Results Up, Hide Them Or Suggest Your Own

Barry Schwartz on November 29, 2007 at 9:25 am

Google has rolled out a new experimental feature that allows anyone to alter search results in the way they like. You can move good results higher, hide ones you think are bad and suggest your own.

Google was spotted testing this feature with selected users back in August and September, and then Googlified
spotted it going live this week for anyone to use.

As you can see from the screen capture below, this new feature enables users to vote up a search result or completely remove a search result from the index.

Clicking the up arrow will promote the search result to the top spot for that keyword search and place an orange marker on that result to classify the result as being pushed up. Using the X icon will hide the result from being displayed.

Google explains:

This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you’ll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made. Note that this is an experimental feature and may be available for only a few weeks.

Google launched Google Experimental Search in May of this year at where features such as Like/Don’t Like are made available for testing by anyone. You’ll also find these other features there:

Alternate views for search results
Keyword suggestions
Keyboard shortcuts
Left-hand search navigation
Right-hand contextual search navigation

There is currently a lot of discussion around this discovery at Techmeme.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

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 SEM topics.