Google Personalized Search - Optimization Nightmare or Opportunity

Hello again and welcome to another AddMe.com newsletter, in this issue we touch
on personalized search and how this effects your websites search engine traffic.
I'm also excited to announce a new addition to the newsletter, Industry Events.
Industry events will feature up and coming industry and trade events that I feel
are worth checking out, these events are great for learning about internet
marketing, website promotion and networking.
If you have an up and coming event that you would like included in please feel
free to contact me via the website.
Thanks again to our sponsors for making this newsletter possible!
Featured Blog Posts
Google Street View Funnies
Some classic and strange pics of people and animals caught during the latesst
Google Street View update
Marketing Your Business and Website Online
4 important points to consider when starting your online business.
Google Internet Speed Test
This is an old post though becoming more important when it comes to Google and
SEO, is your website up to speed?
Input about these and all other posts are always welcome, please leave a comment
about any post you find interesting on the Blog.
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Industry Events
Sydney
Search Marketing Expo (SMX) - April 22-23, 2010
SMX Sydney, Australia's #1 Search Marketing Event is the "must-attend" Search
Engine Marketing and Social Media event of the year in Australia, delivering
superior value to Conference Delegates and Exhibition Hall attendees alike. more
info.....
Search Engine Boot-Camp - April 22-23, 2010
Whilst SMX Sydney is on we are offering our Exhibition Hall delegates the chance
to learn Free of Charge from some of the industries brightest minds, the Agenda
below will run on Day One and Two of the Conference and is Free for anyone to
attend. Limited seating is available, so get to the sessions you want to see
early.more info.....
Google Personalized Search - Optimization Nightmare or Opportunity
In December 2009 Google rolled out Personalized Search for users who were not
signed in, and in over 40 languages. Personalized search has been around for a
while for signed in users who have web history enabled. This allows Google to
fine-tune your search results based on past searches and on the sites you've
clicked on in the past. This is how Google tries to optimize searches for you
when your search terms have more than one meaning.
For example, Googling the term "blackberry" while signed in with web history on
gets the results you see on the first screen shot. From my search history it is
clear that I'm much more likely to be searching for information about the
BlackBerry PDA than about the actual fruit. On the other hand, my mom, who does
a lot of baking and jam-making, would probably end up with search results about
the fruit rather than about the electronic device, based on her history of
looking up recipes.
So now that personalized search is on offer for signed out users, exactly what
does that mean?
It means that personalized search can use an anonymous cookie on your browser to
base your search results on 180 days of search activity linked to this cookie.
This is completely separate and apart from your Web History and your Google
account. When you have the option of personalized results while signed out, you
will see a link that says View Customizations in the top right corner of the
results page, as you can see in the second screen shot. When you click on it,
you can see how the results are customized and, if you want, you can turn off
this type of customization.
Now, there are obviously computers where lots of different people search, so the
browser cookie might be influenced by multiple people's search activity. To
protect the privacy of the non-signed-in users, you can't actually view the
specific search activity upon which the signed-out personalized search is based.
Plus, you can turn off personalized search settings for signed-out personalized
search altogether if you want.
As for signed-in personalized search, you can clear the history upon which your
personalized results are based at any time to protect your privacy. That way, if
you stay signed in and someone else wants to know what you've been searching on,
they won't be able to do it through your personalized search history. Of course
they could still go through your web history, so if you're concerned, you should
use your browser to clear your web history.
If you're a webmaster, you might be wondering whether personalized search,
adopted on a massive scale, will affect your ability to reach the people you
want to visit your website. The answer, unsatisfactory as it may be, is "Yes,
and no."
Consider this. If a user searches for, say, "pith helmets," and visits the top
result and the last two results on the first page of listings. Then those three
websites will be added into the person's personalized search data. Next time the
user decides to do a search for "pith helmets" then those two sites from the
bottom of the first page of results will rank higher than they would in an
organic, starting from scratch search.
But what if the user finds another search result, say the 7th one on the new
results page, and bookmarks it and goes there henceforth rather than searching
for pith helmets anymore for the time being. But then, a few months later, he
thinks that maybe there's a better pith helmet out there so he does another
search. But this time, the one he bookmarked shows up as the top result. What gives?
Even though that site didn't do any special SEO, there it is, right at the top
of our pith helmet-loving searcher. However, other searchers will find other
pith helmet dealers at the top of their results pages.
Dominate Google for Your Keywords Today!
So how do you, the webmaster, change your SEO strategy? Or do you need to change
it? If you're doing legitimate, white-hat ways of getting traffic to your site,
then your site will be more likely to bubble to the top of the research results
for personalized search. A first time searcher might find your site perched at
No. 1 simply because he has already visited it a bunch of times through other
routes. This is true even if your site wouldn't be tops in an organic search.
There's nothing really that you should change in terms of your SEO strategy.
Keep doing the on-site SEO as you have been, and you'll probably do fine. But
there's nothing wrong with using off-site SEO to build up your brand and keep
your visitors happy. Again, it boils down to having great content that people
will find compelling and that will make them want to come back. This helps you
whether the game is organic search or personalized search.
The takeaway is this: Google personalized search isn't so much revolutionary as
evolutionary. It's not going to take all the search engine results and shuffle
them massively. It may mean that sites that focus on the mechanics of SEO
without focusing on great content could lose some ranking, but even that seems
unlikely. Personalized search will change things up a little on an individual
basis, but it by no means throws out the concept of organic search results based
on SEO.
About the Author
John Wieber from http://www.seomoves.org, a full service, bleeding edge seo company.