Google Personalized Search Fair or Unfair??

[incrediblehelp]

From the way I am looking at it now I think G personalized search is not entirely fair. I feel it will barely function on a single user level, one user using one computer. What if I am searching for fun, blowing time off. What if then decide to get work and start looking for more business oriented websites. Is Google going to assume when and why I am searching? For fun or not for fun? Will it be more biased to fun websites since I spend more time on them, than work websites or vice versa? I certainly hope not.

Now bring into the second, third or forth parties using the same computer? Does this mean we all will be forced to sign into and out of our own Google accounts to use the search engine? Seem like it, but I hope not. So maybe just the owner (Mom or Dad) leaves themselves signed in and everyone searches under the same Google account. How is that a good searching experience when it may be much more biased to the on who uses Google the most! Mom, dad, brother, sister, etc...

I am all for making the best searching experience possible, I just do see how making each user of Google sign in is going to do it.

I am sure we will learn more everyday how Google Personalized search will help or hurt use as SEO's and general users of their search engine. It shall be very interesting.

[incrediblehelp]

A few other solid posts on the subject:

Danny S
Google Ramps Up Personalized Search

SEO Roundtable (Posted by Barry Schwartz)Your Google Search Results Are Personalized

[incrediblehelp]

Yes more opinions this time from Threadwatch.org (Google haters):

Google Getting More Personal Why You Should Care

Of course I agree with most responses here.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Of course I agree with most responses here.

Isn't silence golden? I interrupted that silence.

[incrediblehelp]

Not sure why no one is posting in this thread KGun.

[chrisJumbo]

Is search history (if turned on) only recorded when you actually select a site?

If that is the case, then it could work to your advantage. In theory the next time you searched, those items you "liked" would come up nearer the top. Is that correct?

For users, it could help them eventually weed out content they didn't want. For instance, many people type "CD Rates" to find our site. This will bring up both financial services, music companies, and CD rom sites, primarily.

After a while, if you never selected a music company or CD rom site, it would stop serving those results. Is that correct?

[Katt]

Originally Posted by chrisJumbo

After a while, if you never selected a music company or CD rom site, it would stop serving those results. Is that correct?

That's the way I understand it, and it's one of the many things that bothers me about this. After it stops serving up CD-ROM sites, what happens when I decide I need to find a CD-ROM site? It just seems to me that this personalized search cannot possibly do all that G thinks it can do - it cannot read our minds!

[Dinghus]

I think I'm confused here, IH. What are you really saying? Are you saying that you don't want personalized searches/pages/whatevers at all or that somehow the site knows when there is a change in users or user function?

To me it is like using Amazon or any other site like that where multiple family members have accounts. To use MY account I log on. When I'm done I log off. So too, if I want a personalized page on Google I expect to login and when I'm done I log out (or let the next person login).

I'm failing to see what the wailing and gnashing of teeth is all about?

Now about suddenly changing your search habits and whether or not G can pick up on it or not ....

[RemodelingGuy]

GOGG will NEVER make you log on to use thier search engine.

However, if you have a GOOG account - GMail, Adsense, Adwords etc., you are already logged in ( unless you log out of course )and GOOG has a history of your likes and dislikes, and over time will rank sites that you visit, your home page, shopping sites etc. higher than ones you have never visited or been once or twice.

It's good for the consumers and bad for SEO turds that try to manipulate the system.

The consumer will get a more relevant result and sites that don't have "SEO Experts", if there is such an animal, more opportunity to rank.

Time for site owners to learn a bit about press releases, advertising outside the box and marketing to keep the site alive.

I haven't seen any decline in hits whatsoever since the beta was implemented.

If you don't like the results it's giving you - LOG OUT!

Two thumbs up for GOOG.

At least the info they have been hijacking from me for years is going to a good cause!

[EditFast]

Google uses thousands of people (Human Quality Raters) in its attempts to refine the search process and define the likes and dislikes of its users as well as to help them define what is a good and bad site, what spam sites look like etc etc. They pay out almost US $3 million per month (peanuts for them) to these raters for their time and assessment skills.

I got a funny feeling when I learned that Google was going the GPS route and begin to wonder how much money they would save and how much better their research would be using the entire world as their laboratory, which they do already, but when you think about the individualized element here it becomes a huge benefit to them and their gaol to provide the best results on an individual basis AND save money on research! Now, with GPS they can (or will be able to)

• * eliminate the Human Raters and save a couple million each month
  * receive better, more reliable, and individually applicable statistical research on what the Internet searcher wants.

Finally, the security issues surrounding this move by Google worries me considerably. Please correct me if I am wrong but it is my understanding that after 911, there were laws passed under the guise of Homeland Security which allow the authorities (FBI, Homeland security, CIA) to view information about individuals which is stored on third-party machines and they can do this without a warrant and without the individual knowing anything about this. Am I paranoid or is this true? if so, how does that affect the individual using GPS and providing them with their personalized search and Internet habits?

[MarcGrobman]

I'm not sure about "fair" or "not fair" but I don't think people will like it.

People like to see what everyone else sees. There is something to be said for the group experience we have when we are online. It is like when people talk about serving up custom ads on TV and radio. How would that have changed the Super Bowl ad viewing extravaganza? We like to watch tv and surf the internet to see what is out there, see what is popular with others and to experience new things.

I'm sure personalization is our future in one form or another. I just don't think it will work if all we see in the media is a mirror of ourselves.

[dviney]

Jaan, Marc - I agree.

Personally, I find the personalised results somewhat irritating and always turn them off - now turning them off is a little more difficult.

What interests me (however) is the extent to which Google will AGGREGATE these results in order to refine algorithms going forward.

Such a step is fraught with risk (i.e. people from developing countries being paid to click on links) and open to bias (i.e. certain types of people have a higher propensity to sign up for Google services - including SEMs & Webmasters).

The one thing which consoles me is that (in the end) Google have a vested interest in ensuring the regular organic results for B2C and B2B product & service searches never become perfect. Why? Well because if the world's most popular brands all end up in the top 10 for their search terms then why would they buy PPC advertising? Can Google afford to ignore those big advertising dollars?

There has to be room for the small guy targeting a niche - and an algorithm which does not deliver that will cause Google to eat itself!

D.

[fraktalisman]

Amazon does a similar thing, and shows you recommendations based on recent actions including viewing a product, putting it in the shopping cart or rating it. I actually tried to improve the results by rating some products and clicking on "not interested" for some others. But although I think Amazon's method is one of the few that actually do produce some reasonable output, it still produces a lot of unwanted stuff, too. E.g. once you start shopping for other people, it all gets messed up again. SE queries are a much more complicated topic, so I don't think it'll get any good any time in the near future.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

....I just do see how making each user of Google sign in is going to do it.

"Hulk", I assume that's a typo and you may want to change that bold "do" to "don't" or "do not". ?

I haven't trusted ANYTHING G does for years now. Google.com is in my "restricted sites" zone in IE. That's how you avoid this. I can still stay [shudder] logged in for G Groups, but if I do a search on G, it does not know I'm logged in. Furthermore, I can use a constant advanced G search and avoid their evil Cookie by doing this:

1. Enable Cookies for google.com.
2. Go there and click "Preferences", set them, then click to "save preferences" and you should be back to the search page.
3. Click the "Advanced search" but don't do anything on that page, just put a [space] in the search box.
4. Then bookmark that, make a shortcut to it, and you click that instead of having to go to google.com .

Put google.com into the Restricted Sites zone. All Cookies from the site are blocked. Go to google.com and you should see the red "Restricted sites" and minus sign "-" icon at lower right (in IE).

You can still login and use your Gmail [shudder] or login to use G Groups, and still have your saved G advanced search settings without being force-fed a google.com Cookie.

[incrediblehelp]

Yes Clint that is a typo, It is supposed to be don't.

I don't buy into the Amazon thing. Your actions are buying and saving things you like on A. Google is taking it to a search level beyond A and the multi-user part is what will hurt G the most with personalization.

Jim, I am all for making better search results and making them "SEO turd" proof.

I think an old friend of mine that posted on blog said it best:

"Maybe I am a huge Dolphins fan but I need to do some research on marine biology. How difficult would it be for me to find what I am looking for?"

[chrisranjana.com]

Yes sometimes personalized search throws up oft repeated items. I have to log out of my google account and then search again. Sometimes it is helpful especially when you want to search pages from a particular country or search for particular providers etc

[kgun]

Some days ago I made the following search

Clondyke

and expected a site on the Clondyke goldrush to be my first hit.

As I glanced down the first SERP, I had to refine my search to

Clondyke gold rush,

and then the expected result showed up.

I think the Amazon personalized search based on my earlier book buy's aren't bad, but sometimes it proposes books that I have already bought elswhere on e-g- Traders Library. BookFinder4U.com may be even better.

Security settings in IE are mentioned. Now, all the options confuse me a little. Are they so good as the quantity of possible options may indicate?

Security models for the three most important browsers are as follows:

• I.E. Security model based on zones (that are far from good enough security. False security).
• FireFox and Mozilla based browsers, model based on privileges. There is a difference in the way the browser handles signed and unsigned scripts.
  
  Related thread:
  Signed Scripts in Mozilla
  
  Better security.
• Opera: Cross server scripting (nearly) impossible.

I mention this since zones were mentioned above. Though they may be good enoug for that special purpose.

This is also related to the results on the SERP's. I am looking for a SE that tests the URL's before they are presented on the SERP page. There should be no bad redirects of hits listed on the SERP's. I have found hits with bad redirects, pages that automatically start downloading code / ActiveX controls or whatever if you did not have the correct options checked in IE. Would you rely on a financial advisor that adviced you to a product that may ruin your business? A bad redirect can in extreme cases infect and destroy some of your eProperty. I think Microsoft uses this technology to stop spam epost, and it is good. It has eliminated all eposts "from PayPal" to my inbox. Yes all of them. IE is still my default browser and Google the default SE, but there may be better alternatives out there.

In stead of concentrating their resources on improving personalized search, the big SE companies should concentrate on improving the results on the SERP's that are far from good enough yet. That is my opinion. And the advanced options, are they so advanced in february 2007?

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by kgun

.....IE is still my default browser and Google the default SE, but there may be better alternatives out there.

Sure, most either hate each of them or love them.

I only mentioned IE's "restricted sites" zone because what domains are placed in there are no longer allowed to "do anything". Like automatically download code, ActiveX, and, Cookies.

Instead of concentrating their resources on improving personalized search, the big SE companies should concentrate on improving the results on the SERP's that are far from good enough yet. That is my opinion. And the advanced options, are they so advanced in february 2007?

I think everyone would agree with that.

SE's "Advanced search" options are, as the name implies, only for specific type of string queries. IMO G has the best, that's about the only "best" thing about them. Not just the exact phrase search (in quotes), but results only from a specific domain, "without the words..." (uses - sign), the "OR" term which is "with at least one of the words", results in only in one specific file format, dated results, etc., etc.

[okparrothead]

Interesting question Incredible.

I don't think much of the personalized search feature and here's why. When I search, I want to find what's out there, not what I already know about.

It would be like looking in an encyclopedia for Aardvarks and then the next time I wanted to search for Zippers, I had to wade through all the listings in "A"

I have all my browsers set to forget everything when I shut them off, so I don't know how G can track what I searched for, unless its on a session basis, so I feel I'm getting fairly untainted results. Tell me if I'm wrong about that.

What I want to know is how will this effect SEO?

Despite everything we do, will results be slanted to where a user has already been? If they search a lot on eBay, will their searches mainly return listings from auction sites? If they search a lot for music, will they get the search terms they entered with a slant to the highest ranking music sites?

Further, I don't believe that G would give us a new feature without there being something in it for them. Is the personalized search their way of tracking what really is the most often re-visited sites?

Yes, a very interesting question in deed.

[Clint1]

Originally Posted by okparrothead

I have all my browsers set to forget everything when I shut them off, so I don't know how G can track what I searched for, unless its on a session basis, so I feel I'm getting fairly untainted results. Tell me if I'm wrong about that.

G can track what you search for by at least two ways: One is your IP address. Contrary to what some think, they can indeed look up an IP and see everything you've searched for.

Another way is the