The next logical step in the evolution of the web is personalization as search engine algorithms become smarter and more complex. The people who are fighting it are fighting the future. There’s no ideology; it’s all about the individual and what they’re looking for. So yes, in my opinion, if I don’t like A and prefer B, please show me more searches about B and less about A, which I will just ignore anyways. This is of course a huge oversimplification, but you get the idea.
The idea of personalization isn’t new; it’s a concept that’s been tossed around for years and is just now coming to fruition. Currently, Google is the only major search engine that really delivers personal search results, but Yahoo and Ask Jeeves aren’t that far behind.
Gord Hotchkiss wrote a great article about this topic that goes far more in depth than I do here; my goal is just to give you a broad base from which to take your next step.
Solomon also touches on the idea of personalized search in his article “Imagining Web 3.0 and Beyond Part 1 – The Mind Blowing Evolution of the Social Web.”
Currently, search engines can only use select pieces of information about you to understand what you’re looking for; these include looking at your past search history, web history (e.g. bookmarks), content you have on your personalized page and other social and geographic information. For example, take Google’s personalized search, iGoogle. It has all of these elements and more.
Hotchkiss’ article makes a great analogy between broad vs. personalized search. He asks users to imagine a huge, well-stocked, well labeled department store where the shopper bears all the responsibility of finding the exact product they need compared to a small mom and pop type store where the owner knows all about your needs and wants as a shopper and can recommend items and ideas based on what they know about you.
It’s really an excellent way of describing where search is and where it is going. But what is any post about the future without considering the negative aspects. I understand why personalized search is a little cumbersome; having to sign in and out of an account before you search, especially for households with multiple users, could get annoying. On the other hand, that is what programs like Roboform are for. Considering the attention of the average internet user is next to nothing, the majority of people don’t bother to sign in. Part of this is impatience and the other part is that the user simply doesn’t how personal search can actually help them find what they’re looking for.
Another argument that has cropped up is latency; which, simplified, is the amount of time the search engine keeps your information and bases the results on it. For example, if you go to Italy on your honeymoon, how long before the search engine stops bringing up Italy and honeymoon related searches in your results.
These are just a couple of the comments on the potentially negative aspects of personalization and there are plenty more , but as we move further and further towards personalization, these concerns and others will be addressed and dealt with.
Rhea Drysdale of Search Engine Journal also offers a great outline garnered from sessions at SMX Advanced and a valuable tip: by adding “&pws=0†to the end of a search query on Google, non-personalized results will come up saving you the inconvenience of logging out every time.
Personalized search is really still in the fledgling stages but it presents a whole wealth of possibilities for the future of search and the evolution of a more personal, effective search experience.
Another consideration is that of control; who is in control of what you see: is it you, or is it the search engine? With personalized search, it could be the search engine, they could skew results, feed ads, which is exactly what they want to do. With universal search, you are in control, seeing the same results as anybody else, deciding yourself what to click on, what to look at. I think personalized search is a pain in the ass: but I am 53 years old, and it takes time for me to adjust my thinking about such things
[...] Some searches for broad real estate, travel, auto and others are fed goegraphically targeted ads through personalized search technology (see related post: http://socialmediasystems.com/06/14/getting-personal-a-quick-look-at-personalized-search/Â ) [...]
You can pause your web history indefinately, avoiding personalized search altogether, which is what I do: from Google help:
Can I “pause” my web history?
Yes. If you’re visiting a web page or performing a search which you don’t want stored in your web history, just click the “Web History” link from the Google Accounts page, then click the “Pause” link on the left side of the Web History page. Once you click “Pause,” your web activity won’t be kept in Web History or used to personalize your search results until you click “Resume.”
If you’d like to sign out of Web History altogether, click the “Sign out” link at the top of the Google homepage. Note that you’ll need to sign back in to your Google Account to have Web History begin storing your web activity again.