[LINK] Webmasters fume as Google profiles signed-out searchers

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

Webmasters fume as Google profiles signed-out searchers
'Welcome to the GORG'
By Cade Metz in San Francisco
7th December 2009 08:09 GMT
The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07/google_personalizes_logged_out_search

Google is now "personalizing" results even when users have not logged 
into its web-dominating search site. And SEO types aren't too happy 
about it.

Personalization is a euphemism for a Google-controlled practice that 
involves tweaking your search results according to your past web 
history. Mountain View was already doing this with users who had signed 
in to a Google account so they could use non-search services like Gmail 
and Google Calendar. But now it's targeting results for all users - 
whether they're logged in or not.

The way Google tells it, this will make your life better. "Now when you 
search using Google, we will be able to better provide you with the most 
relevant results possible," reads a blog post 
(http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html) 
from the company. "For example, since I always search for [recipes] and 
often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank 
epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes."

Of course, this is also a way for Google to build a better profile of 
your web activity - and target ads accordingly.

The Chocolate Factory has always hoarded the search history of everyone 
visiting the site - whether they were logged in or not. But this is the 
first time Google has massaged results for users who haven't signed in. 
This is just one of the many reasons Google likes cookies.

The company's new cookie-based personalization is based on 9 months of 
stored data. And it's completely separate from account-based 
personalization.

Google does let you turn off 
(http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=54048) 
personalization off. But it's on by default - and we all know that most 
people will leave it on.

It's a particularly worrying prospect for search engine optimizers 
(SEOs) and other webmasters seeking to influence Google's results. With 
results changing from user to user, convincing Google algorithms to push 
a particular site to the top of page becomes all the more difficult.

"Does this pretty much make checking your place in the serps [search 
engine results pages] meaningless?" asks one poster in the ever popular 
forums at Webmaster World 
(http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4037372.htm).

Another is confident that SEOs will still have their place in Google's 
world. But he questions whether the Chocolate Factory is making it more 
difficult by preventing users from finding things they may not know 
they're looking for.

"There's something about always getting personalized search results that 
is socially troubling," he says. "I can see it creating a kind of 
ostrich phenomenon, where the average user is less and less exposed to 
anything new. I noticed this happening in my own online news consumption 
several years ago, and took intentional steps to make sure I got out of 
my own preferential areas."

But others phrase their concerns in a manner that's a bit less, shall we 
say, level headed. "GOOGLE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. THEY VIEW YOUR BUSINESS 
AS AN ENEMY and ONLY have their OWN interest at heart," says one SEO. 
"THIS ANNOUNCEMENT SHOULD BE THE FINAL WAKE UP CALL to what Goog's about."

"Welcome to the GORG," says another.

-- 
 
Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au