Personalised Search

by George on December 6, 2009

Personalised SEO
The face of Search Engine Optimisation has changed. Rankings will lose their meaning. What has happened? Enforced ” Personalised Search ” from Google.
Now, when you search Google, the results will be different to a colleague sitting next to you. If you both type in the same keyphrase, the results will now be re-ordered depending on your last 180 days of activity. Google have rolled this out worldwide in more than forty languages. Personalised search was previously an opt-in for logged in users with ‘web history’ enabled.  It’s now an opt out – this means that the majority of users will be using it and not even be aware.
How does it work?
Google monitors what sites you click on (via the search results) and increases the ranks of these sites in future searches. So, for example, if you regularly search for and click on moneysupermarket.com Google will make it appear nearer the top of the search results.
What does this mean?
It means that your position in the SERPS (search engine results pages) either matters less or matters more! It’s another tactic similar to the Google Caffeine update that will promote larger, bigger brand sites as these will likely have been searched and clicked on before. The smaller, lower authority sites will therefore get pushed down. So, you should see a promotion of the bigger, high authority sites and a demotion of the smaller, low authority sites.
It also means that SEO work – particularly analysing the search results is going to get harder. It also means a headache for some SEO companies who have to explain this to their clients(!)
What do you think?
Smart move from Google? Invasion of out privacy? Something else? Let us know in the comments below.

The face of Search Engine Optimisation has changed. Rankings will lose their meaning. What has happened? Enforced ” Personalised Search ” from Google.

My Search Results are Different to Yours

Now, when you search Google, the results will be different to a colleague sitting next to you. If you both type in the same keyphrase, the results will now be re-ordered depending on your last 180 days of activity. Google have rolled this out worldwide in more than forty languages. Personalised search was previously an opt-in for logged in users with ‘web history’ enabled.  It’s now an opt out – this means that the majority of users will be using it and not even be aware.

How does it work?

Google monitors what sites you click on (via the search results) and increases the ranks of these sites in future searches. So, for example, if you regularly search for and click on moneysupermarket.com Google will make it appear nearer the top of the search results.

What does this mean?

It means that your position in the SERPS (search engine results pages) either matters less or matters more! It’s another tactic similar to the Google Caffeine update that will promote larger, bigger brand sites as these will likely have been searched and clicked on before. The smaller, lower authority sites will therefore get pushed down. So, you should see a promotion of the bigger, high authority sites and a demotion of the smaller, low authority sites.

It also means that SEO work – particularly analysing the search results is going to get harder. It also means a headache for some SEO companies who have to explain this to their clients(!)

What do you think?

Smart move from Google? Invasion of out privacy? Something else? Let us know in the comments below.

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

www.quoteme.ie December 17, 2009 at 10:18 am

To be honest I am not really happy about the personalized searches from google when you are not logged in. It makes SEO a lot harder for companies with smaller budgets.

I don’t know about other car insurance or general insurance websites but traffic would appear to be 75% new the whole time for ourselves. So hopefully first time searches for different keywords relating to insurance are presented to the user initially in your true serp positioning before personalization.

Just a thought but maybe google are trying to make PPCs more competitive again in comparison to organic seo?

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