Google Personalized Search??

[Rwh909r]

So I just heard that if you have any type of google account, adsence, gmail etc... on your computer, then Google is going to start remembering what you search on to help "personalize" your search results.

If this is true, won’t this skew SERP reports and cause other issues for SEO?

Has anyone else heard about this?

[Sadu]

Yeah, pretty nasty not knowing whether your results are skewed or not. Sucks to be a gmail user and logged in the whole time.

[David E]

I can see alot of potential SEO clients thinking they have got good rankings when really thier site ranks poorly, might be bad news. You can turn it off if you want by clicking this link and loging in:

https://www.google.com/accounts/Serv...ice=hist&srr=1

[Sadu]

Hehe, blackhats can sit down with their clients and show them their number one result for "buy viagra".

Opens up a whole raft of possibilities for misleading the uninformed :S

[maldives]

True.. that really sucks! Especially if you are banned from adsense already!

[sniperhiga]

That's why i never use Gmail

Also, don't forget that when you look information on Google toolbar and Google.com.... somethimes it shows you different results because Google toolbar can work only with some datacenters....

[Rwh909r]

Originally Posted by David E

I can see alot of potential SEO clients thinking they have got good rankings when really thier site ranks poorly, might be bad news. You can turn it off if you want by clicking this link and loging in:

https://www.google.com/accounts/Serv...ice=hist&srr=1

funny but when I log into my account I see the search history instructions on how to "pause" this feature but the PAUSE button is no where to be found on my account search history page or on the main Google page.

Anyone know exactly where this button is located?

[Rwh909r]

nevermind found it

[JoJo]

New Google accounts will auto enrol you with SEARCH HISTORY, PERSONALISED SEARCH, PERSONALISED HOME PAGE.

You can indeed disable the search history.

Existing accounts still require the search history to be manually enabled.

HOWEVER everyone who is signed into a Google product eg Gmail, Adsense, Google Analytics will received personalised search results.

Personalised results can/will be provided whether the history is disabled or not - these will be derived from other Google products - pay particular attention to your personalised homepage !

As for Gmail - it seems most users 'log out' when they have finished with their mails...Google is already working on a sign-off feature for this that would exit you from gmail but not automatically from the whole of Google's product systems (making personalised search more likely as you would remain 'in' the system)