Google Search History - Slowly but Surely Personalization Creeps In...
First announced on the Google Blog, though their permalink is 404! heh.. comes the expected GOOG move toward personalization, My Search History (Beta, of course...)
Chris Sherman says
In my opinion, it's the strongest personalization offering from a major search engine to date
and has a SearchDay article about it here
Charlene Li says
Yes, My Search History keeps track of every query and search result that you click on within Google.com. Yes, there are some pretty interesting, (and scary) implications of Google keeping all of that data on their servers.
Nathan Weinberg says Google is now a Portal
Yes, ladies and gentleman, that is what we call a portal. Google may want to avoid it, but with a logon at Google.com, they are now officially a portal. One day, I wouldn't be surprised if we get to customize our Google.com with our favorite tabs, the option to integrate things like Google Suggest, and even custom Google Doodle. The Google Account is now part of your personal Google experience.
Aaron says
I would not doubt this to do a bit more of globalizing SEO. Paying people in third world countries to randomly click certain sites. I am already building a search history today as a prospective SEO tool.
Nick W says....
- The beginning of the end for studying search results for seo
- The birth of a new type of spam
- The birth of a new type of competitor sabotage
- How long before they drop the opt-in?
Interesting times....
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amazon
amazon has a lot of user data too, don't they. i think i read somewhere they have the most of that type of data for retailer websites...
That is sooooo scary
Searches with no clicked results:
Apr 21, 2005
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Threadwatch.org | Marketing and Technology Discussed - 1:11am
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Isn't it scary to read sth like that and having the knowledge that somebody might be able to look into your account and see what you were looking for in the past? "Sign out" - there we go ;)
Offers to sign you in...
...with your gmail sign on.
Yep, that's really one portalesque Google cookie.
Added: Might we be looking at a full rollout of gmail anytime soon?
Let us "help you" by rembering all of your searches for you. No really we won't take all that data and do anything with it really. All that stuff in the patent application was just a load of bullocks we have no intention of doing anything like that really, you trust us don't you?
or not....
Google Search History RSS
I just finished up making a Google Search History to RSS convertor. It's kind of interesting see your searches over time. It would definitely be intriguing to watch it for some of my friends (if they were willing to share that information). More info can be found here: http://ejohn.org/projects/ghistory/
it's all a plot
imho the best way to 'get rid' of seo is to make the SERPS so personalised that no site can hope to be 'top' in any measurable way.
If Google start down the 'customers who liked this site also liked' path (can anyone say Urchin?) then everyones SERPS will be unique. Once it becomes impossible to show a client they're top of page 1 a lot of the £100 a month type SEO contracts will surely crash and burn.
SEO will always exist and it'll always play a part in some results, but I suspect for a lot of industries this could stir things up big time. Combined with clustering this could get very interesting very quickly.
Wired Article on it
The Wired article explores the privacy angle.
Love the quote from the workers friend Marissa Mayer
What's So Scary?
So some hard disc in california has a paper trail of my searches?
Wow! Watch me tremble. Not.
If I get better results, great. If not ... maybe M$N ... no, can't be that desperate ...
Google - Proudly making conspiracy nuts lose sleep
About a month ago, someone covered here on Threadwatch said that the search wars were just beginning. I hope this is true, because Google really does need a solid ass-whooping at this point.
Google's formula: 70% search technology, 30% everything else.
How to beat Google formula: 100% search technology, add PPC years later as your sole revenue stream.
I missed this yesterday when it was launched in Google Labs
Google's explanation:
Now it definately has some superb value for the average searcher. I know I have been in the position where I have thought. "Ahhh, I found a site months ago, that would be perfect for this project. What was it? "
It records your searches, what results you clicked and most intersting of all the actual SERP G served to you all in an easy to use calendar.
They are tracking clicks via a mousedown event within the Anchor tag
This has massive implications inlight of the new Google patent and Michael Martinez' excellent article, Google: Changes in Google Ranking Strategies that discusses (amongst other things) the patent.
I really must take my hat off to Google for the way they do some stuff. They could have easily slipped this in, under the guise of "helping the searcher" (much as they did with AutoLink ) but have taken the route of being open and giving you a choice.
It's in (so called) "Beta" and in time it may well go mainstream Google, but until then the Privacy Policy says:
Yup, boys n gals, Google has confirmed it will use the data to increase effective of it's search engine.
Will this see the launch of botnets in SEO?
Will this see that it will become exponentially hard for new sites to rank?
Does this change the game?
It isn't just Google though, Yahoo's recent patent seems like it is more of the same. More on Yahoo's when I get more time :)