Google Gets Personal

First, a brief recap of Google's announcement and what it means to users right now:

Here are the details:

Now, everyone signing up for a Google account gets Search History enabled by default. The opt-out box is positioned so that most people would likely not even notice it during the sign in process.

Whether or not you have Search History enabled, you get personalized search turned on by default. This means that Google will subtly change your results, based on various 'signals', like what you have on your personalized Google Homepage and what sites you've bookmarked as a Google favorite. Of course, if you have Search History enabled, this is the main 'signal' for personalized search

Finally, and probably least significantly, everyone gets their own Google Home Page when they sign up for a Google account.

The End of One Page for All

Let's leave aside the privacy issues of Search History right now. That's a topic that deserves a column by itself. It's the end of the universal search results page that I want to touch on today.

There has been significant dissent voiced to Google's move to personalized search, and it's coming primarily from one source: search engine optimizers. In opposing personalized search, they're saying it degrades the user experience. I responded by saying that it was the wrench that personalized search throws into their SEO plans that was raising their ire. But let me set aside my jaundiced view of the search world for a moment and chronicle their concerns (excluding privacy issues), as near as I can understand them:

- Taking control away from the user by making personalized search a default and making it more difficult to toggle on and off

- Fear of anomalous browsing patterns (i.e. going to visit a number of humor sites on a whim or the invite of a friend) unnaturally biasing search results

- The 'machine learning' algorithms that power personalized search not being smart enough to really provide more relevant results

I've come out as saying that personalized search is inevitable and the day of all of us seeing the same page of search results is rapidly coming to a close. To me, this just seems obvious. But still, there are those that protest. Here's one example from Michael Gray, a well know SEO Blogger:

I've never met a business owner who's said, "man you know what, I wish the search engines could create anarchy by making sure no two people got the exact same results for the exact same search that would be the best thing since sliced bread."

In fact, Michael's beef seems to be a consistently recurring theme amongst the dissenters, that a move to personalization suddenly seems to open the door for chaos on the results page. I believe the opposite is true.

Every Search is an Island

I am an individual, with unique interests, experiences, values and goals. My intent when I search for hybrid vehicles, or New York hotels, or Smart Phones, or any of the hundreds of other things I search for monthly, will be significantly different than all the other people that launch those same searches. I want a search engine smart enough to know that. I've always said that humans are complex, far too complex for a simple search box to get it right. That's why personalized search is inevitable. If we want search to move to the next level, to get smarter, more intuitive, more relevant, we need to leave standardized search results behind.

Does this mean Google will get it right out of the box? No. They will take baby steps towards what personalization eventually needs to become (although I believe those steps will be in rapid succession, because they can hear the competition hard on their heels). Yes, there will be many who find that in the early stages, personalization may be more frustrating than it is useful. But for search to mature, these are growing pains we'll have to endure.

I've been labeled as an early proponent of personalization. I'm not sure this is necessarily the case. To me, it's not a question of liking or disliking the recent moves by Google. To me, fighting search personalization is as pointless as refusing to accept today's weather.


Gord Hotchkiss
President and CEO
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Positioning by Searchengineposition
Blog: www.outofmygord.com

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