Google announced today that they were adding more transparency to their customized searches. If you aren’t aware, customized searches are those where Google remembers your location and your previous searches and uses that information when evaluating new queries you put into the Google search box.
While some people might be thinking, “Neat!” I find this to be a royal pain.
As I’m writing copy, I have to conduct countless searches every day. One usually has nothing to do with the other. But, with customized searches, the “carry over” affects on my new searches drive me crazy! For instance, I researched information about cosmetic surgery for a client in the UK weeks ago. Still to this day, my search results tend to show more UK-based sites than American sites.
I’ll search for seafood information for a Boston restaurant in the morning then travel information for a New York cruise agency and my search results will follow those locations. When I next search for something personal – perhaps a new DVD player where location of the store does not matter – my search results are skewed.
Google states, “Because recent search activity provides such valuable context for understanding the meaning behind your searches, we use it to customize your results whenever possible, regardless of whether you’re signed in or signed out.” Do they sincerely believe that only individuals conduct searches for their own benefit? Somehow Google has missed that business professionals conduct countless thousands of searches daily for a variety of reasons.
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Google also gathers information from your computer, which I do not care for. For instance, they determine your location by the IP address of your computer. If you don’t like the location they assign to you, you’re welcome to create a Google account, log in and give them yet more information.
Sorry for the snit, but this has long been a feature of Google that has driven me to distraction. Google, if you’re listening, cut it out!
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Hi Karon,
You can disable the personalized results by adding &pws=0 to the end of the url when you search. To make that easier, you can download a plugin created by Joost de Valk that will do this for you when you search from IE of Firefox. It’s at http://yoast.com/seo-tools/disable-personalized-search-plugin/
Hope this helps ease your frustration.
Kevin
Welcome Kevin and thanks for the suggestions.
Karon, I’ve become frustrated with this, as well. Many of my clients are in California, while I’m in Iowa. Now when I try to type in something, many of the listings are related to San Fransisco. It’s a minor inconvenience, but still annoying.
Welcome, Scott! I agree. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s a pain when you do searches all day long.