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Google Personalization – Good or Bad

Today we’re helping people get better search results by extending Personalized Search to signed-out users worldwide

That was Googles headlines for Dec. 5, 2009.  At first blush, it sounds cool, but if you think about it, it’s bothersome, at best.  Read on  and follow the links for more details.  This first one is a ling to Googles Blog putting their “spin” on the changes. 

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html

That’s a staggering statement meaning that every computer accessing Google is now being personalized, signed in or not, so any desktop, laptop or kiosk will start tracking everything everyone does and you won’t be able to access the same search results from any two machines.

The possible impact to all is staggering.

Here’s something from the article that can be important for SEOs:

Check out our help center for more details on personalized search, how we customize results and how you can turn off personalization.

…and from that last link:

If you aren’t signed in to a Google Account, your search experience will be customized based on past search information linked to a cookie on your browser. To disable history-based customizations, follow these steps:

  1. In the top right corner of the search results page, click Web History.
  2. On the resulting page, click Disable customizations.(Because this preference is stored in a cookie, it’ll affect anyone else who uses the same browser and computer as you).

Even so – you know the average user will not be doing any of that – and neither will the average client, until you explain it to them eleventy-eleven times.

This just feels so very wrong-headed that the mind boggles! As I often explain to IT staff, NOT EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE PROGRAMMED SHOULD BE PROGRAMMED. 

What are your thoughts? Post your comments below.

Roger

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Google Personalization – Good or Bad”

  1. Tweets that mention BizTek Connection, Inc. | IT Support | Data Protection | Web Design | Little Rock, AR -- Topsy.com says:
    December 7, 2009 at 2:22 pm

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kim Geralds, Roger Best. Roger Best said: Google Personalization – Good or Bad. http://ow.ly/JAIM [...]

  2. Hipolito M. Wiseman says:
    January 9, 2010 at 1:22 am

    Great information! Thanks!

  3. Buddy Anglin says:
    March 1, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    The article gave us a major Brainstorm session of all the possibilities we could make use of on our blog.

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