February 4, 2009

Changes in Attitudes Needed For Success of Google's Latitude

The new track a friend product from Google - Latitude may need some change in the attitude of people regarding privacy if it is going to become really successful.

Granted I have already had three requests to share my information today, this tool no doubt will be used for pinpointed advertising and may not prove popular with the general public.

The product is available for PCs, PDAs and smart phones. May have come in handy when I lost my last iPhone. I could have had it set for a friend to be able to triangulate where the phone was. But at this stage, you are required to type in where you are.

If they incorporate the tracking element the GPS programs offer in smart phones we could use Latitude to track lost phones... something to think about Google.

Posted by Frank Watson at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 18, 2008

SEW Experts: The Future of Google's Search Personalization

Some SEOs aren't getting the message about Google's personalization of search results. Many are not seeing the writing on the wall: 2009 will likely see the end of the ranking report in SEO. In today's organic search engine optimization column, "The Future of Google's Search Personalization," Mark Jackson advises SEOs to acknowledge traffic, conversions, and ROI as the important metrics for any form of marketing or business.

» Full story

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 17, 2007

Sep Kamvar Discusses Personalization

My latest interview is with Google's Sep Kamvar. We talked about the personalization algorithms currently in use by Google in detail. Sep spells out in detail for us:

The two signals that we use right now are the search history and the location. We constantly experiment with other signals, but the two signals that have worked best for us are location and search history.

We do talk quite a bit more about the types of signals they experiment with. Net-net most of the other signals they have experimented with are "noisy" in nature. What he means by that is that their test has shown that the input from such signals does not really help them improve the quality of search results for their users.

It underscores the fact that it's not as simple as we are all inclined to think. There are lots of things that we can guess make for good signals for a search engine to use. But many times, these signals really don't match up with a user's search intent.

For example, just because a user indicates a personal preference for something, that doesn't mean that this really related to what they are searching for at a particular time. In fact, when Google tried to get users to specify their interests, they found that it was not a good signal for them to use.

The key element really is what they user's intent at the time they perform the search. Turns out, that is not that simple to determine.

Posted by at 9:01 AM | Permalink

September 28, 2007

Google Testing Time Elements In Search Results

Seems Google is testing using time elements in their search results, according to results found by Cheezhead, though the first comment was from Danny Sullivan who thinks the results may be related to advanced search.

Time elements could be an interesting filter when dealing with news or blog sites, but beyond that it promotes constantly changing your content. I would like to hear from anyone else that has seen this or people with comments on its use.

I started a thread here.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:33 PM | Permalink

May 1, 2007

Google's iGoogle Announcement

Google just announced their new iGoogle Personalized Homepage service. This announcement includes a variety of new features, and more insight into where Google is going with personalized search. A detailed summary of everything has been put up by Google Blogoscoped.

There are a few things that really stood out for me. One of these was the notion advanced by Sepandar Kamvar that Google wants to calculate PageRank for every person. Of course, the original notion of PageRank was simply a measure of raw incoming link juice. And this has already been extended with the notion of search query specific PageRank. And now, we finally have the notion of person specific PageRank. How the three will combine together should be interesting to see.

A couple of example of how this might work is that search results can be personalized based on your recent search history. If you have recently searched on "maserati", and then type in "jaguar", the auto results will receive a boost over the animal. Or if you type in pizza, and you have set a default location in Google Maps, you will get information on pizza places near you.

This is very interesting stuff. Of course, it gets complicated in a few ways:

1. Benefiting from the functionality requires that you are logged in to your Google account. Not every one does that all the time.
2. If you are like me, I have multiple Google accounts. Which one am I logged into at the moment? Couldn't tell you.
3. Many machines have multiple users, such as family machines. When my daughter cames into use my computer, I am still logged in.

Another very interesting part of the announcement is the improvements in Gadget Maker. Now users are supposed to be able to use Gadget Maker without doing any programming all. Google's announcement states: "Anyone who can upload a photo or write an email can use one of Gadget Maker's seven modules to create a personalized gadget without knowing how to write code".

Here is the list of gadgets that Google is allowing non-programming types to access:

1. A photo gadget
2. Google Gram greeting gadget
3. A mini-blog gadget
4. personal list gadget
5. personalized daily countdown gadget
6. YouTube video favorites gadget
7. Customizable free form gadget

There is a lot of great stuff in here, and its implications on SEO and web marketing will take quite some time to figure out.

Posted by at 1:25 PM | Permalink

February 2, 2007

More Users to See Personalized Google Results

Google has just increased the prominence of its personalization tools, including its personalized homepage and personalized search options. Beginning today, personalization tools will be turned on by default for all new users with a Google account, and many personalization options will be auto-enabled for users with existing accounts.

In a Google Blog post today, Google's Sep Kamvar, engineering lead for personalization, and Marissa Mayer, VP search & user experience, explained that all signed-in users will now begin seeing personalized search results.

"Our goal with these types of technologies is to make your Google search experience better based on what we know about your preferences, without you having to do any extra work," they wrote.

Previously, users were made aware that the results were personal results, and could turn off that feature by clicking on a link. Now, users are still made aware that results are personalized, but there's no link to change that. Instead, users need to log out of their Google Account to do so.

Danny Sullivan has done a very thorough analysis of the implementation of the new personalization tools, and the potentially huge effect on search engine marketers, in his post, "Google Ramps Up Personalized Search."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:33 PM | Permalink

October 6, 2006

New Search Patent Applications: October 6, 2006 - Google Takes Over the Patent Office

There were some interesting new patent applications this week from Yahoo, Microsoft, and IBM, but nothing on the scale of the outpouring of intellectual property published and assigned to Google - I uncovered 15 new patent applications from the Mountain View search giant. I'll address patent applications from those others in a later post. This post looks at Google's filings.

Some of the topics covered include:

• Natural language questions and answers from a search engine,
• Query rankings and mid-page refinements,
• A detailed personalization system,
• Advertising and email contacts amongst members of a social network,
• Bringing together advertisers and advertising agents,
• Addressing different audience segments with ads,
• Improving the value of pay-per-impression advertising,
• Data embedded in hardware devices to help target advertisments, and;
• Sharing Settings and other data across browsers (and Office applications).

A Question Answering Search

I thought of Danny's post from yesterday, Hello Natural Language Search, My Old Over-Hyped Search Friend, when reading this patent application. Will people ask actual questions to a search engine if the anticipate that they will receive relevant answers? Here's an exploration of that question:

User interface for facts query engine with snippets from information sources that include query terms and answer terms Invented by Andrew William Hogue US Patent Application 20060224582 Published October 5, 2006 Filed: March 31, 2005

Abstract

A method and a system for providing snippets of source documents of an answer to a fact query are disclosed. Snippets of source documents may be provided in response to a user request for the source documents from which the fact answer to a fact query was extracted. The snippets include the terms of the fact query and terms of the answer. The snippets may be displayed along with Uniform Resource Locators (URL's) of the source documents.

Middle Page Query Refinements

Danny also mentioned in his rant the need for better query refinements, and how Google has been offering them for a couple of years. (His timing is pretty good.)

Just how does Google decide to present some of the suggested alternative queries that it shows in the middle of some results pages? What triggers their appearance, and determines which queries and results appear? How are alternative queries ranked?

I examined this patent filing in considerable detail at SEO by the Sea, in a post titled Google's Query Rank, and Query Revisions on Search Result Pages.

Query revision using known highly-ranked queries Invented by David R. Bailey, Alexis J. Battle, David Ariel Cohn, Barbara Engelhardt, P. Pandurang Nayak US Patent Application 20060224554 Published October 5, 2006 Filed: November 22, 2005

Abstract

An information retrieval system includes a query revision architecture providing one or more query revisers, each of which implements a query revision strategy. A query rank reviser suggests known highly-ranked queries as revisions to a first query by initially assigning a rank to all queries, and identifying a set of known highly-ranked queries (KHRQ). Queries with a strong probability of being revised to a KHRQ are identified as nearby queries (NQ). Alternative queries that are KHRQs are provided as candidate revisions for a given query. For alternative queries that are NQs, the corresponding known highly-ranked queries are provided as candidate revisions.

Google Personalization

After more than a few hours, I'm just partially into breaking down the processes described in the following six patent applications detailing some of the things that Google is looking at in a personalized search system. They share a single detailed (and long) description and abstract, and were all originally filed on March 31, 2005 and published on October 5, 2006. The claims section in each application different and explain how the different documents play a role in the overall personalization scheme.

Systems and methods for analyzing a user's web history Invented by Andrew Fikes, Jeffrey L. Korn, Oren E. Zamir, Lilly Christine Irani US Patent Application 20060224583

Systems and methods for modifying search results based on a user's history Invented by Oren E. Zamir, Jeffrey L. Korn, and Andrew Fikes US Patent Application 20060224587

Systems and methods for combining sets of favorites Invented Oren E. Zamir, Jeffrey L. Korn, and Andrew Fikes US Patent Application 20060224608

Systems and methods for providing subscription-based personalization Invented by Jeffrey L. Korn, Oren E. Zamir, and Andrew Fikes US Patent Application 20060224615

Systems and methods for managing multiple user accounts Invented by Jeffrey L. Korn, Oren E. Zamir, and Andrew Fikes US Patent Application 20060224624

Systems and methods for providing a graphical display of search activity Invented Andrew Fikes, Jeffrey L. Korn, Oren E. Zamir, and Lilly Christine Irani, Avni Upendra Shah US Patent Application 20060224938

Abstract

A user's prior searching and browsing activities are recorded for subsequent use. A user may examine the user's prior searching and browsing activities in a number of different ways, including indications of the user's prior activities related to advertisements. A set of search results may be modified in accordance with the user's historical activities. The user's activities may be examined to identify a set of preferred locations. The user's set of activities may be shared with one or more other users. The set of preferred locations presented to the user may be enhanced to include the preferred locations of one or more other users. A user's browsing activities may be monitored from one or more different client devices or client application. A user's browsing volume may be graphically displayed.

Social Networks

Both of these next two documents mention Orkut, as well as some other social networks.

Methods and systems for member-created advertisement in a member network Invented by Kevin David Fox US Patent Application 20060224446 Published October 5, 2006 Filed: March 29, 2005

Abstract

Methods and systems for members of a member network to create and target advertisement to other members of the member network. A member can target advertisement to other members in the member network by establishing a member profile that includes associations and/or nexuses with the targeted members. Fees can be charged to members who create and disseminate advertisement to other members in the member network.

Methods and systems for providing current email addresses and contact information for members within a social network Invented by Kevin David Fox and Duane Scott Hess US Patent Application 20060224675 Published October 5, 2006 Filed: March 30, 2005

Abstract

Methods and systems for providing current email addresses or contact information to members within a social network are described. In one described method, an email program application requests an email address for a member within a social network. Using profile information associated with the member, the email address is provided to the email program application which sent the request. The email address is then entered into the send-to parameter field of an email message. In another described method, contact information associated with a first member of a social can be provided to a second member of the social network. The contact information is provided if the relationship between the first and second members is an authorized relationship. The contact information associated with the first member can be used to update the contact information for the first member in an electronic address book associated with the second member.

Advertising

Some past patent applications made it appear that Google wanted to help make it easier for advertisers to create their own advertising campaigns and ad copy. This next document looks instead at making it easier for advertisers to find people willing to help them with those activities.

Networking advertisers and agents for ad authoring and/or ad campaign management Invented by Ross Koningstein and Sumit Agarwal US Patent Application 20060224444 Published October 5, 2006 Filed: March 30, 2005

Abstract

As online ads are becoming technically and artistically more sophisticated, advertisers will need a way to efficiently request assistance with ad creations that offer richer ad formats. An online ad business environment helps connect advertisers with ad service providers (also called agents or advisors) who can meet their needs for more complex and sophisticated ad creatives. The online ad business network may use a job listing board where advertisers can enter request for assistance and agent can view them. The business network may also include an agent directory where agents can post their profiles and services and advertisers can view them. Using the job listing board and agent directory, advertisers and agent can contact each other through contact operations available in the business network, and enter into business relationships. A payment from an advertiser to an agent may be made via the business network. The amount of compensation paid to the agent by the business network need not be equal to the amount of payment received by the advertiser.

How helpful would it be if it were easier to understand and manage the serving of ads based upon different audience segments and factors like different geographic areas, different times, different user devices, different audience demographics, etc.?

Automated offer management using audience segment information Invented by Ross Koningstein US Patent Application 20060224447 Published October 5, 2006 Filed: March 31, 2005

Abstract

An advertiser's management of an advertising campaign may be assisted by (a) accepting information defining a plurality of audience segments to which an advertisement may be served, (b) accepting a first offer, and (c) determining, using the first offer, a second offer associated with at least one of the plurality of audience segments. The act of determining a second offer associated with one of the plurality of audience segments may use an indication of value assigned to the one audience segment. The indication of value may be automatically determined, and/or provided by an advertiser. The indication of value may be expressed as functions, rules, and/or parameter values. The information defining a plurality of audience segments may be one or more of (a) location information, (b) user information, (c) temporal information, and (d) client device information.

Can something be done to improve the value of pay-per-impression advertising? That's the topic of this next patent application.

Adjusting an advertising cost, such as a per-ad impression cost, using a likelihood that the ad will be sensed or perceived by users Invented by Brian Axe, Gregory Joseph Badros, and Rama Ranganath US Patent Application 20060224445 Published October 5, 2006 Filed: March 30, 2005

Abstract

A price paid for an ad impression may be adjusted using an estimated probability that the ad will be viewed, or otherwise perceived or sensed, or using one or more factors which may be used to estimate such a probability. The price and/or probability may be adjusted using events occurring after the impression of the ad.

Data can be embedded in hardware, such as digital cameras and PDAs, and identified in software that can help an advertiser target the users of those devices. For example, I may take pictures with my camera, and then upload the images to the web with a program like Picasa, or send them to someone through Gmail. The data from the device may be included in metadata from the pictures, and might be used to send me advertisements related to my camera in some way. That's the area that this next patent application covers.

System and method for obtaining content based on data from an electronic device Invented by Michael Bryan Herf US Patent Application 20060224448 Published October 5, 2006 Filed: March 31, 2005

Abstract

In one embodiment, data from an electronic device is identified. The data may describe an electronic device (e.g. a hardware or software device) on which a document was created or modified, the subject matter of a document, the state of a document, or the like. Content relating to the electronic device is obtained based on the data. The content may be obtained in response to viewing, editing, printing, emailing or other accessing and/or processing of the document.

Sharing setting information and other data across browsers

Browsers collect a lot of information, such as bookmarks, security settings, web surfing history, autocomplete information, password data, location of toolbars information, and much more. It would be great to have an easy way to share this kind of information between browsers on different computers or on the same computer, to different versions of the same browser, or to different browsers (such as between Internet Explorer and Firefox. The techniques involved might even be applied to other types of applications, such as transferring settings between Microsoft Word to Powerpoint.

No mention of Google Office applications are made here, and the patent application was originally filed over a year ago, but the thought crosses my mind that it might be helpful to copy settings from Word to Writely, or from Excel to Google Spreadsheets.

Method and system for transferring web browser data between web browsers Invented by David Marmaros US Patent Application 20060224967 Published October 5, 2006 Filed: March 31, 2005

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method for transferring web browser data between web browsers includes collecting browser data pertaining to a first web browser, packaging the browser data into an intermediate format, and storing the packaged data for a subsequent import into a second web browser.

My usual reminder about patents: Some of the processes and technology described in patents are created in house, and some are developed with the assistance of contractors and partners. A percentage are never developed in a tangible manner, but may serve as a way to attempt to exclude others from using the technology, or even to possibly mislead competitors into exploring an area that they might not have an interest in (sometimes skepticism is good.)

There are times when a Google or Yahoo acquires a company to gain access to the intellectual property of that company, or the intellectual prowess and expertise of that company's employees. And sometimes patents are just purchased.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Google area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 3:40 PM | Permalink

May 25, 2006

Google Rankings Depend On Data Center, Geographic Location & Personalization

Aaron Wall has a nice write up on the different ways one searcher can see one set up results, compared to a different search seeing a different set up results, all for the same search query. Aaron explains that three primary things may determine the results sets you see for any particular query. They include the search engine data center you hit, the location of your computer and if you have personalization preference turned on.

Data Centers: Depending on the search engine, especially Google, you may hit a data center that has a different set of indexed pages or a slightly different algorithm. Both have an effect on the search results you see. Google has multiple data centers in order to help return you a quicker response and because it enables them to roll out different indexes and algorithms slowly and to select users. As you can imagine, it will affect the result sets you see.

Geographic Location: Some times, Google tailors the results to your location. So if you are in London, Google may show you results that are more relevant to a person in London. How? They may show more results from .co.uk domains, or from servers hosted in the area or sites that have the language.

Personalization: With most search engines now, you can now sign in, and enable personalization. That means the search engines look at your search history and other preferences and tailor the results specifically for you. As you can imagine, this will have an impact on the results you see for a particular query.

I did not really read Aaron's post, but I suspect it says the same thing I said above. If not, you can blast me in our forums. Read Aaron's post here, it is a nice topic.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:32 AM | Permalink

February 24, 2006

Google Mac Widgets for Blogger, Gmail and Search History

Yesterday the Google Blog informed us that three new Google Widgets for the Apple Macintosh's OS X Tiger have been released. Widgets on a Mac come by way of Apple Dashboard that basically allows you to press a key on your keyboard, and these widgets begin to hover over your desktop and applications. Widgets allow you to perform routine tasks quickly but I have disabled dashboard on my computer due to performance issues (that is an other story). The three widgets released are for;

1. Posting Quick Blogger Entries
2. Checking your Gmail Account
3. Viewing Your Past Search History at Google

You can download these widgets to your Apple computer by visiting http://www.google.com/macwidgets/.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:47 AM | Permalink

December 22, 2005

Your Own Personal Google Zeitgeist

Setting trends on the Official Google Blog covers a great holiday gift, a way to see your own top searches on Google. Very, very cool. You need Google Personalized Search active. Got it? Good, now go to your trends page. There you'll see the top 10 searches you've done, the top 10 sites you've visited and the top 10 things you've most clicked on.

The time period isn't given, and I'm gong to follow up to find out more the difference between sites visited and top clicks, since they feel very similar. You also get nice charts of monthly, daily and hourly search activity -- though what time zone that hourly activity shows isn't said. I'm guessing Pacific. If so, nice if you could adjust this to your own time zone in the future.

By the way, click on any of the bar charts, and you'll see details of the particular time period you've selected, in terms of top queries and top sites.

Finally, you're shown the top five things other people searched for that are similar to your searches. That's less than impressive, at least for me. Check out my list:

1. christmas party games
2. بنك الرياض
3. backrub
4. santa gif
5. joe clark

None of these seem remotely to anything I've searched for, I'm afraid, especially number two.

Postscript: I sent across these follow-up questions to Google, and here they are, with responses:

1) What period covers the top tens? These my top ten searches today, this week, last 30 days?

Those are top 10 of "all time" (since you started using Personalized Search).

2) Monthly, if I click on a bar, is that the last month? Daily, the last particular day in a given week or all days (ie all Wednesdays) over a period of time. Same thing on hourly.

If you click on a month, those are the top queries/sites for that month. If you click on a day (e.g., Wednesday), those are the top queries/sites for all Wednesdays. Same thing for hourly: that's the total across all days' searches during that hour.

On hourly, what time zone. This all in Pacific? If so, plans to allow changing to your own time zone coming?

It uses the user's local time zone (or to be more specific, the time zone of the user's computer). In fact, all of a user's search history is in their local time zone.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:26 PM | Permalink

November 11, 2005

Google Personalized Search Now Includes News Results

Yesterday, Google rolled out an improved version of personalized search results, saying that news results would be included "soon." That didn't take long—today, a message on the Google News page lets us know that news results are now included in personalized search results, joining web and image results in the mix.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:32 AM | Permalink

November 10, 2005

Google Personalized Search Grows Up

Google seems to be amping up the pace of pushing products out of the nest. This morning, the company moved Personalized search out of Google Labs and made it available as an option for anyone signing up for a Google account. The service is now also available to users around the world, rather than being limited to just Google.com, and is launching with a number of feature enhancements. More info in today's SearchDay article, Google Personalized Search Leaves Google Labs.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:31 AM | Permalink

November 9, 2005

Google's Personalized Results Patent

Patents, patents. Yes, another Google patent to talk about, this one related to personalization of search results and which is getting the attention of many search marketers. Let's dive in!

Personalization of placed content ordering in search results (PDF file) is the actual patent, for your reading pleasure.

Patent reading is never a pleasure for most, of course. That's why it's nice to have someone break it down for you. Who've we got? C'mon over Loren Baker! He takes you through a summary over at Search Engine Journal in his Google Patent : Organic Results Ranked by User Profiling post.

Not enough? Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz is usually all over doing a patent breakdown but hit with time issues, he summarizes Michael Nguyen's in depth rundown, which you'll find here.

Is Google Messing With Organic Algos? from Paul Bruemmer steps beyond the patent to ask what's going on with personalization more generally.

Finally, there's our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Google to Manipulate Organic Rankings with User Profile, where there's lots and lots of discussion.

In particular, I want to highlight my comment in the thread. Like Paul, I'm stressing not what's in the patent (which may or may not be in use) but rather what's actually happening in terms of personalization at Google, Yahoo and elsewhere.

If you're worried about personalization, it's especially a look at what's actually happening now that I'd encourage you to read up on -- and I provide lots of links in that post.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:28 AM | Permalink

October 11, 2005

Google Lets You Manually Save & Tag Results Through New Bookmarks Feature

Google Adds Tagging from Nathan over at InsideGoogle is a nice look at how Google now gives you the ability to manually save results via a new "Bookmarks" feature and assign labels and notes to them. He calls it tagging, while Google uses the term "labels." I suppose the only difference is that tags are often used for content shared with others, and so far, none of what you tag within Google Search History gets shared.

First, the how it works part. You have to be using Google Personalized Search, also explained more in our past article, Google Relaunches Personal Search - This Time, It Really Is Personal.

If you are using that, you'll automatically have your searches recorded. However, the new Bookmarks lets you manually save any results you might want to file away.

Next to any item in in your Search History results, you'll see a star. Click on the star, and you'll have saved the item. You'll also see a new Edit link appear. Click on that, and you can add labels/tags or organize items and also notes.

For example, I could save items about cars under the "cars" label and items about mp3 players under the "mp3 players" label. I could also assign an item with both labels, if I wanted to. After doing this, I'll then have these labels showing up under the Bookmarks heading on the left-hand side of the page. Clicking on a label link brings back the results I've tagged this way.

I found the label system buggy, however. Supposedly, you could type in a bunch of labels separated by commas, such as:

apples, bananas, oranges

In fact, text in the label box encourages you to do just that. But if I try to under commas (using Firefox 1.6), they simply won't take. Instead, I have to save with one label, reedit, add a comma and the next label, save, and so on. Hopefully, it's either just a problem I'm having or a problem everyone's having that will get fixed soon.

None of the labels or tags you save for a result will show up if you do a regular search and see a result you've tagged in the future, as how Yahoo's My Web works. I thought that's how Ask Jeeves also worked, but it doesn't appear to be the case when I looked again today. But like Yahoo, you can save and tag and annotate results with the Ask Jeeves My Jeeves service.

Overall, Google's playing catch-up here. It's definitely nice to have the new feature, and I want that in addition to automatically saving, but there's no new ground being broken with this. Indeed, what's especially needed is for the feature to jump out of being within the Search History area and into Google's main results.

What I mean is this. If you're logged into Google and using personalized search, you can't save anything in the results you get back. Instead, you can only save and edit results that are automatically saved after you click on them.

I want the feature to evolve similar to what you see at Yahoo, where you can manually save a result and annotate it right within the regular results page.

Google recently mimicked Yahoo's Block feature by adding a "Remove result" link to the listings anyone sees when using Google Personalized Search. Making a step beyond that to add Save, Label & Note buttons similar to what Yahoo does, as well as Ask Jeeves and even AOL, is a no brainer step to make.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:18 AM | Permalink

September 23, 2005

Google Testing Remove Results Feature

Google's testing a new option letting a small percentage of people remove results they don't like from their own personalized search results. This will only happen if you're logged in and using Google Personalized Search. In other words, see a page you don't like? You can block that page from coming back. It only will impact the personalized results you see -- not the personalized results of others or general results that anyone sees.

Whether it will be released to everyone will depend on how the experiment goes, Google says. Whether the data might be rolled out to being used more broadly for regular, non-personalized results also remains to be seen, I'm told. It's just gone live about an hour ago.

See also the A Search Marketer's Look At Yahoo My Web 2.0 for Search Engine Watch members for a detailed look at how a similar feature operates on Yahoo. Yahoo provides more info on this (it's in My Web 1.0, not My Web 2.0, here).

Postscript: Google's Matt Cutts has posted more info about the feature over here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:20 PM | Permalink

June 28, 2005

Google Relaunches Personal Search - This Time, It Really Is Personal

Google has released a new version of Google Personalized Search, this time in a format intended to constantly monitor what people select from search results and shape future queries based on their choices.

The new service is linked to the My Search History feature that Google unveiled last April (see our Google My Search History Personalizes the Web for more on the feature). Google Personalized Search uses My Search History data to refine your results based on your searching habits.

The service hasn't been formally rolled out via Google Labs, something that should happen later today. But it is starting to show up in search results pages for some people, as Dirson's spotted here and here, with a screenshot here.

When it does appear, you should be able to access it here: Google Personalized Search. I can reach that page myself, but it currently generates errors if I try to do a web search. Similarly, the Personalized Search help area has yet to go up.

Here's what I can tell you so far. Google hasn't explained exactly how the My Search History data is used. The service is literally brand new, and I'll be doing a follow-up to hopefully provide more details later in the day. However, it's pretty likely that a profile of what you like is created based on the pages you visit via the search results, rather than the actual searches you do.

Huh? Google gives an example (not yet posted live) that says:

For the query [bass], Google Personalized Search may show the user results about the instrument and not the fish if that person was a frequent Google searcher for music information

How would Google know you are a frequent music information searcher? It could monitor the types of queries you do and use various methods to tell if you seem to be searching for music information often. But another method -- and one using technology Google has already has demonstrated -- is to monitor what you click on in the results.

(FYI, a Google patent on personalization based on bookmarks that recently came to light is covered in this SEW Forums thread and in great depth in this Cre8asite thread. Another recently discussed patent also covers things like using clickthrough measurements to refine results. In addition, Google has personalization technologies and patents from past acquisitions, such as Outride).

Google Personalized Search 1.0 - Pages By Topic

The previous incarnation of Google Personalized Search that opened last year let you create a profile used to customize your results. By selecting categories, you could tell Google you were interested in things like movies, radio and music. Then by using a slider, you could "personalize" your results to skew them toward your particular interest areas.

More about how that service operates is covered in my past review of it, Google Gains Personalized Search Results. In it, I explained that Google was classifying pages across the web into topics. The "personal" results were simply those skewed more toward the topics areas you were interested in, a profile you had to manually create.

In the new system, a profile is created automatically. As said, exactly how isn't explained yet by Google. But almost certainly, it's measuring what you click on and then skewing your results over time to favor sites that fall in particular topics areas seems part of it.

Turning Off Personalization

What if you don't want the skew? There's a "Turn OFF Personalized Search for these results" link on the search results page you can use. If you see that link, it's a sign that the results HAVE been personalized. No link, then no personalization happened. And if you get the link, clicking on it will bring back regular results on a per result basis.

Want regular results all the time? You'll need to sign out of Google, if you've signed in. Signed in? When did I sign in! You logged into Google any time you used a service that can range from Gmail to Google Sitemaps. Anything that requires a Google Accounts sign-on is a service that logs you into Google. And if you activated My Search History, then that gets switched on along with personalized results once you've logged into ANY Google Accounts service.

Pausing Search History Recording

Understanding that signing-in automatically activates these features is important. Google's My Search History and Privacy from The Unofficial Google Weblog from a few weeks ago explains how some might not have realized that My Search History went active just because they went to check their email. So be aware. If you've enabled My Search History, it's going to switch on if you log into most anything at Google.

Dislike that? You don't have to sign-up for My Search History, of course. That will block the recording of your searches and the personalization now happening. But you can also pause the service.

When I tested today, a pause will be retained even if you sign out and then back in. It's an easy way to stop your history from being recorded unless you specifically want it to be. But remember, pausing will not stop personalization from happening. If you have any recorded search history at all, then Google will try to personalize your results, whenever you are logged in. There's no "Pause Personalization," as of yet.

Finally -- SEO Faces A Thousand Fronts

When Eurekster kicked off round two of search personalization last year (why round one died in 1999 is covered here), I explained in my review for Search Engine Watch members that personalization was appealing to search engines as a spam fighting tactic:

Link analysis itself is facing problems. Link spammers and others overtly manipulate links. Links are also created naturally in ways much different than in the past, polluting their usefulness in search. Personalization poses a potential next leap forward -- and clickthrough measurement can provide that.

In addition, past uses of clickthrough measurements never delivered personalized results by default. Anyone was allowed to influence the results that everyone else saw. In Eurekster's system, only those within your search network can directly influence you. This effectively creates hundreds, thousands and even millions of different possible results for the same search.

Click spammers suddenly face many different "fronts" in the war to be in the top ten, and they only get to fight in that war by invitation -- if someone they know asks them to be part of their network. Eurekster assumes "friends don't spam friends," and it's a pretty safe assumption.

Since then, we've seen the major search engines add search history features but not actual personalization of results, as I explained last October in my article for Search Engine Watch members, Search Personalization: A Marketer's Perspective.

That was written when Yahoo's "My Web" search personalization features came out, including the ability for searchers to block sites and the issues and workarounds this poses for site owners. Now that Yahoo's My Web is offered to anyone as part of the regular search experience, search marketers are taking more notice of the "Block" and "Save" features that appear next to every page listed.

And so they should. While these features don't rerank results yet, the Block can certainly make pages disappear. In addition, the data could be used at any time as a way for Yahoo to decide what users may like or dislike. In fact, that Search Personalization: A Marketer's Perspective article covered how this was something Yahoo said it was considering.

Since then, Yahoo's dropped heavy hints that it will create a social search service where communities may create reshape results in different ways, as Yahoo Wanted Flickr For The Tags (& Tagging Community) from last week covers briefly. Meanwhile, Google's gone and done it. Personalized results have come firmly come to the major search engines, a third generational step toward improved relevancy and the beginning of the end of everyone seeing the same results.

Will marketers find a way to spam personalized search? That remains to be seen. History so far has shown that each improvement eventually gets less effective. Heck, the Google My Search History Spam from May shows how you can spam entries easily into someone's search history at Google. It's still working. But while you can leave entries, you aren't generating clicks -- and so you aren't impacting the personalized search results. I'm sure personalization will lose some spam resistance over time, but there's no doubt it will make spamming results much harder.

Postscript: If you log out of your Google Account, then you'll see the Personalized Search home page with this text:

Personalized Search is an improvement to Google search that orders your search results based on what you've searched for before. Learning from your history of searches and search results you've clicked on, Personalized Search brings certain results closer to the top when it's clear they're most relevant to you.

Part of Personalized Search is the Search History feature, which lets you view and manage your history of past searches and the search results you've clicked on. As you build up your search history, your personalized search results will continue to improve over time.

Want to discuss? Visit our forum thread, Google Getting New Personalized Search

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:35 AM | Permalink

June 14, 2005

Google Scholar Link Showing Up For University Users

On Google Scholar noted that some going to Google from within university campuses were seeing a new Google Scholar link on the Google home page. Google confirms this is the case.

We have been offering Google Scholar as a tab [link] for the .edu domain for a few weeks now. We have expanded this to a larger set of universities. This includes a large number of universities around the world, not just .edu.

In other words, if Google can tell you are coming from within an institution using IP addresses that resolve to an .edu domain, or from a list of universities it chooses to target, then you'll see a new "Scholar" link on the Google home page, as the screenshot shows below:

Thanks to CKP for the screenshot!

We asked Google if there was a way for those who wanted to add the Scholar link to the home page to do so if it doesn't show up automatically, but the company didn't respond. We think it would be a good idea.

For that matter, if would be nice if people could pick and choose exactly what links they want on the home page, given that Google offers a variety of search services that aren't normally shown. Perhaps that's something the Google personalized home page launched last month will allow, as it matures.

FYI, Yahoo's pure search page has an edit option just above the search box that lets you add and remove links to many of the company's vertical search services. A9 also allows you to pick-and-choose from hundreds of sources.

Postscript: Gary points out that you can also do something similar on the main Yahoo home page, if you are logged in as a registered user. Look for the very small edit link in the upper right hand corner. That will let you change three of the home page "buttons" to the left of the Yahoo logo to whatever you'd like.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

May 31, 2005

What Happened to Google's Personalized Web Search Demo?

When we posted an overview of Yahoo's new Mindset search tool last Friday I pointed out that access to Google's Personalized Web Search was unavailable. Well, it's about four days later and the service can still unreachable. I realize that Google Labs is a place to try new things out but it would sure be useful if Google could simply post a note saying that a service is no longer available or temporarily offline.

UPDATE: Just checked and Google Personalized Search is back online.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:05 PM | Permalink

May 19, 2005

Tomorrow's SearchDay On Google Personalized Home Page Up

I've now posted the full rundown on the new Google Personalized Home Page on Search Engine Watch. It's going out as tomorrow's SearchDay, but you can read the story now.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:58 PM | Permalink

March 24, 2005

Report from PC Forum Search Panel

The ZDNet "Behind the Lines" blog has a look at a search panel that took place at PC Forum last week. The panel included Marissa Mayer from Google, Udi Manber from A9, Alain Rappaport, CEO of Medstory; and Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex, the leading Russian search engine and portal.

Here are a few key items (from my point of view)

+ Google's Marissa Mayer: "We don't know how to do [personalization] well, so we are starting with baby steps, such as knowing where you are as a context," Mayer said.

It will be interesting to see if Google will eventually request more info from users to help with personalization. Another question is, will Google users want to provide the info?

She [Marissa Mayer] said, "We need to get better not at doing searches, but at providing answers people are looking for. There will be a day when ten HTML links regardless of who you are is not the answer any more." She also said that the idea of everybody getting the same search result isn't reasonable.

100% agree on this one. Large engines like Ask Jeeves and MSN are already doing work in this area. Yahoo is also offering many shortcuts that in some cases place an answer on the results page. Google, too! Companies like Kozoru are also doing work in this area. I've said numerous times that for certain "ready reference" queries, search engines will become answer engines. Answers instead of links will also be important for mobile web search to grow.

+ Udi Manber from A9 "In general, people will learn to use search better but have to invest the thinking--we are not in the mind reading business."

Way to go Udi! I'm glad, no thrilled, to read this. A little (like a few minutes) of explanation or training can go a long way. It has been my experience that with a little education users not only leave the session having a couple of new skills but also get excited to go out and learn more on their own.

People can't use what the don't know about and unlike those of us who follow the search space closely, no one has told them what search tools can do with just a small amount of knowlege. As web engines grow larger, searching skills and knowledge about a variety of tools will become even more important. Yet, according to this study search skills haven't really changed in the past seven years. Not every good answer can get into the Top 10 results when a searcher enters two or three keywords.

I'm not only talking about advanced searching skills like placing phrases in quotation marks (-:, but just showing people that large engines offer many services (news, images, shortcuts, etc) beyond the web search box. Also, this training time can be used to share info about specialized search tools (aka verticals) that might be able to save the searcher time, provide them with better results, and allow them to do more with the results.

Education about search and info retrieval should be a part of the curriculum from first grade on. If this is the "info age" (pardon the cliche), shouldn't info retrieval skills along with critical info skills (ability to judge the quality of the content) be crucial? Unfortunately, in many cases, they're not.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:59 PM | Permalink

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