The Times They Are A Changin’ – And So Is Online Search..

MoreVisibility - February 13, 2007

A significant change within search is about and we are carefully and patiently awaiting its results and how it’s going to affect search engine marketing. Google’s latest implementation- personalized search -is changing the game as we know it today. While Google continues to achieve its goal of delivering the most relevant search results to its users, many factors play a role in its change and success.

We’ve already seen the engines take action with more relevant searches in its sponsored search results by scoring advertisers landing pages for their ads. Google began this technique of implementing what is called, “Quality Score”, which has now been implemented by Yahoo as well for better relevancy to the searcher. The quality score is determined by your click through rate, keyword, & relevance of your ad to the landing page.

This new change with personalized search will affect organic results which could mean new algorithm changes for SEO experts to figure out how to optimize for. Although this may sound like search heaven has arrived for users, let’s consider and question some of the following area’s that might come in conflict with the engines and its users.

1- Search Is Temporary. Sometimes, and maybe most of the time, we search for some things we just want to find just for the time being. This doesn’t mean we are interested in what we’re looking for; maybe we just want a quick answer to a quick question. As the engine records some of this search history to provide you with better future results, irrelevant or un-interesting results can come into play.

2- User Behavior. How many times have you performed a search on your parents, friends, or school’s computer? Again, we come into the problem of irrelevant results to the main person’s search. Whether you are on your friends PC, or they are on yours, are the search results going to be relevant to what you are looking for?

How does Google track your search history? Being logged in your Google account or creating a user profile will begin tracking your search history.

With anything that is in its starting stages, it will have its problems and setbacks, but without a doubt, is the right idea for what the future in search has to offer. Not too long ago, Social Bookmarking made its big hit with users as well as online marketers. Choose news stories you like and think other people will find interesting and post them on a site. Personalized search? I think so.