30 replies to this topic

[Randy]

Nethy I don't think you're in a minority. Everything in moderation is the only way forward. Do I pay attention to rankings? Of course! It's just not the only or even main factor I look at. In fact, I'm more interested in ranking well for search queries that my target audience will use, as opposed to believing what some software kit tells me the masses are searching for.

As Ron and Ian have already said so eloquently, and others have expressed less eloquently, it all has its place in the equation. Including rankings. The trick is in getting the right mix so that the information becomes more useful and doesn't distract one from the important stuff.

Nueromancer: The key to the How many people are using Personalization is a tricky one. Previously people would only get personalized results when they were logged into their account at a search engine. This is changing with the push towards Universal Search, Geo-localization and Automatic Personalization. The idea being that if the search engines can track what you've done before whether you're logged in or not (and they've always been able to but are just starting to use the info) they can then offer you personalized results, ones that hopefully better match what you're looking for.

Is this happening already? Yes it is, on Google at least. It's something I've actually noticed over the last few weeks from using Chrome and searching on Google. It was something that was relatively easy for me to spot. The reason being that a few weeks ago I was doing some personal research specifically on sites based in the UK. Since then, even if I'm conducting a more general search and doing it on the .com version of Google, I notice I'm getting a lot more co.uk results show up than is the norm. Even though my IP number is obviously US-based and the things I'm searching for are available in the US.

I'm not logged into my Google account when conducting these searches. I suspect they're probably using a cookie, because if I change to a different browser (say IE or Firefox) I get more "normal" results. So for me at least they're already tinkering with the idea of Automatic Personalization, regardless of whether I'm logged in or not.

Quite frankly it's not working all that well in my case, probably because they don't yet have enough data to make intelligent choices. The moral being that just because I'm interested for a few days in looking up Bed and Breakfast places and tourist type things in the UK and throughout Europe for a little trip I'm planning, it doesn't follow that I want to pay International Shipping rates to purchase a paper folding machine or shrink wrap machine that would have to be shipped from the UK when I can buy 'em 30 miles down the road from me and pay for local shipping.

I've considered zapping my Google.com cookies in Chrome so that it'll act normal again. But I've decided to leave it for the moment so I can see what's happening on the Automatic Personalization front, then do my normal searching in another browser.

[mcanerin]

The moral being that just because I'm interested for a few days in looking up Bed and Breakfast places and tourist type things in the UK and throughout Europe for a little trip I'm planning, it doesn't follow that I want to pay International Shipping rates to purchase a paper folding machine or shrink wrap machine that would have to be shipped from the UK when I can buy 'em 30 miles down the road from me and pay for local shipping.

A *very* important observation, IMO.

Also, what about people who use public computers at school, hotels, the library, etc? Suddenly all your searches are slanted towards the previous user(s). This would be OK if it were: 1) obvious to even newbs that the results were slanted, and 2) there was an easy to use (ie for newbs) way to opt out or end the personalization. But it's not.

Ian

[Randy]

You know me Ian, I always come up with the odd situations, which usually lead to odd observations.

FTR, there's a method to the madness of why I'm leaving my Chrome running as it is instead of deleting the cookies. First, I'm never logged into my Google account with it since it has issues with GoAn's AJAX (imagine that!) but mainly I figured it would be a good thing to give it a couple of months to build up some data about me, what I search for and what I view. Then I might be able to offer an informed opinion as to whether this Automatic Personalization is AI enought to learn from its mistakes or not.

If it learns, that would be great for most users.

If not... well, let's just say I'd consider it worse than useless.

[Jill]

On the Chrome and personalization topic, I think, but I'm not 100% positive that if you use an incognito window in Chrome that you can escape the personalization stuff in Google. (If nothing else you don't have to see that horrible searchwiki crap.)

[projectphp]

Rankings are a poor performance metric, but an excellent tool for discovering problems.

Rankings as a measure of succes are just too variable, and leads to the wrong discussions. I wouldn't like to send ranking reports for that reason, i.e. they make people focus in the wrong place, and lead to stupid discussions on an almost daily basis ("I looked five minute ago and...")

The only rankings that are dead are for dead SEs.

[projectphp]

BTW: is it just me, or does Bruce make a LOT of quite definitive statements? I'm all for predictions, but 128 factors? Where did that (exact) figure come from? Anyone got a link?

[dvduval]

On the Chrome and personalization topic, I think, but I'm not 100% positive that if you use an incognito window in Chrome that you can escape the personalization stuff in Google. (If nothing else you don't have to see that horrible searchwiki crap.)

I am assuming that your search history is not kept when "incognito", but one thing is for sure, we don't know what google knows about us.

[dvduval]

Yes said for link bait than anything else though I suspect that BC and co are trying to move to a more traditional ad agency model ie nice expense account lunches and though a ton of the clients money at the wall and hope some of it works.

What know one says is what proportion of people actually use personalization and what proportion of Job public uses it a large number of whom haven't realized that "sponsored results means an advert"

Traffic is king and what I try to push but where does traffic come (unless the ad sense fairies come in the middle of the night and deliver it) it comes from appearing high up on a given result.

Of course one should ask who benefits from personalization

There are some advantages for the end user but there are down sides as well you cant tell a friend oh search “X Y Z” and expect them to get the same results.

On the other hand making the serps so fragmented that people are forced to use more ppc to get a guaranteed audience? An obvious benefit to G there.

Exactly, and you can have a site that is low traffic, and doesn't rank well that makes a lot of money. Or you can have a site that has a lot of traffic, and doesn't rank well that makes a lot of money. Getting too hung up on rankings is often just missing the point.

[chrishirst]

http://www.webmaster...html#post806529

[1dmf]

if Rankings are dead, SERPs = nothing, how do you get visitors.

Is it purely IBL's / Paid Links / Advertising.

And if so what's the purpose of SE's , if i said to a friend you must check this site out....

Just go to google type 'keyword xyz' , they are number 3 , and the resutls they get are different so they end up on a different webiste, how useless is that!

[Nueromancer]

A *very* important observation, IMO.

Also, what about people who use public computers at school, hotels, the library, etc? Suddenly all your searches are slanted towards the previous user(s). This would be OK if it were: 1) obvious to even newbs that the results were slanted, and 2) there was an easy to use (ie for newbs) way to opt out or end the personalization. But it's not.

Ian

Interesting a lot of sites that do personalisation don't think this though properly - my amazon results ares skewd by my buying presents for my mum (powel and presburger films) and the super niche CISCO press stuf I brought for a wifi course.

it is a 99% certanty that the next thing i buy from cisco wont be 40's films or Cisco Press manuals

[maleman]

rankings are dead

I disagree.

[ogormask]

I have heard so many things from this guys "predictions" and everything he is saying completely contradicts almost everything I read. Of course some of what he is saying is true and as pointed out above I dont wish to expand on that because I think everyone is in agreement on that.

What I am wondering about are some of the spin offs associated with what he said.

1. That Google is somehow going to read your bounce rate as a measure of effectiveness of your site and rank those with a low bounce rate better and vice versa. Some have even gone further and said that G will somehow know your conversion rate (whatever that means since it obviously means competely different things depending on what your site is about) and rank you better or worse based on that. Sure...

2. The video thing. I think what he said is a joke. It is obviously not true as was pointed out. If it were true then simply adding a video to your site would set everyone to par again and thus is just another way to freak everyone out for your own self serving needs such as link baiting for instance which I think was the goal of the interview to begin with.

3. Changes? Name one specific change that happened or will happen? I hear that word and never see one concrete example. I wonder why that is...

4. That page rank is dead? Why would they kill off ranking sites? This makes no sense and only leads me to further question whether this was a real prediction or just a way to link bait or whatever his purpose was.

5. I think he royally confused the rollout of search wiki with his so called changes. Personally I think SW sucks and is possibly a way for Google to test out a new thing and maybe intends to get some data and then figure in or weigh in some of the results. But really how much data are they getting from this? Does anyone even use search wiki?

6. Traffic. That sites with a lot of traffic will rank higher and those with low traffic will rank lower. Umm... That seems completely opposite of everything Google has ever done. How would a new site ever have a chance to rank well? Google does slightly reward long standing sites but further skewing it in their favor seems unlike how Google works.

I guess those are some of the rumors and spin offs I have seen from the BC thing. Personally I just dont see it. I agree with what has been said above in response in these posts. To me the whole interview seemed like a great way to get publicity and has little weight or value overall.

[burnseo]

Can someone give me an example of what a personalized search is exactly?

[ogormask]

I believe its when Google stores your searches and basically gets a feel for what you search for and tries to return more personalized searches for you. Which is pointd out a few times in here that this is nothing new. Google has been doing ip based searches for a long time. Those are where it knows where you are per your ip and tries to return more localized searches for instance.