On December 4th Google announced that it was able to provide its personalised search feature to those users that are not signed into their Google account.
What does this mean?
Well based on the last 180 days worth of history, Google will now understand your search patterns so will start personalising your results page to the content items that Google deems are more relevant. So, for example, lets say that you and I are both fanatical about home baking and your preference was to look at Gordon Ramseys website for recipes whereas I liked Jamie Oliver.
Over a period of time we both searched on recipes, and I favoured Jamies website whilst you looked at Gordons. Once Google has collected enough data, your search results page would put Gordons at the top of the page as that is your preference, but my search page for the same keywords would present Jamies… you get the picture?
This means that every search could be customised specifically for you, although Google will never be able to account for those unique searches you do only once in a while (and over 30% of searches are for this information) – of course you can turn this feature off if you want to, and if you’ve got more than one person using the PC I would!, and you will know if Google have customised your screen as they will tell you
Clever stuff but do you think they’ve gone too far?
Contact us if you want to find out more