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.”