4 ms·

> First of all, that last sentence is in error. Google has been personalizing search since the summer of 2005. But isn't this article only referencing "persona

by zbuc 15y ago

> First of all, that last sentence is in error. Google has been personalizing search since the summer of 2005. But isn't this article only referencing "personalizing search" in relation to Google Search+ Your World? What sorts of personalization existed in Google Search results before GSPYW?

JoshTriplett 15y ago
Google has done several forms of personalization before "search plus your world": - Google detects your location (using GeoIP and similar) and personalizes results that way, both by redirecting you to google.$countrycode and by providing location-specific search (such as map results). You can't turn off the location-specific results, you can only make them more vague (by setting your location as a country rather than a city). - Google detects if your IP address comes from a .edu; among other things, visiting google.com from a .edu will produce a message at the bottom of the homepage saying "Graduating? Come work with us!" - Unless you turn it off, Google personalizes search results based on what you've previously searched for and clicked on. Personally, I think this article has done nothing more than mistake correlation for causation, by saying that because Google keeps adding more personalization and Google's usage keeps growing, that therefore people must like personalization despite people saying they don't want it. I'd suggest instead that people dislike personalization just as they say they do, but that people either don't hate it enough to switch, or don't feel they have a credible alternative to switch to.
- zbuc 15y ago
  Yep, your last paragraph is what I've been feeling. I've anecdotally seen much different results from Google since Google + Your World... searching for technical documentation has become gross -- the same queries for myself and coworkers will return different results. But where is there to go? Duck Duck Go seems OK but I don't feel as comfortable using their UI as I do Google's. Probably just an issue of familiarity.

by zbuc 15y ago

JoshTriplett 15y ago

Google has done several forms of personalization before "search plus your world": - Google detects your location (using GeoIP and similar) and personalizes results that way, both by redirecting you to google.$countrycode and by providing location-specific search (such as map results). You can't turn off the location-specific results, you can only make them more vague (by setting your location as a country rather than a city). - Google detects if your IP address comes from a .edu; among other things, visiting google.com from a .edu will produce a message at the bottom of the homepage saying "Graduating? Come work with us!" - Unless you turn it off, Google personalizes search results based on what you've previously searched for and clicked on. Personally, I think this article has done nothing more than mistake correlation for causation, by saying that because Google keeps adding more personalization and Google's usage keeps growing, that therefore people must like personalization despite people saying they don't want it. I'd suggest instead that people dislike personalization just as they say they do, but that people either don't hate it enough to switch, or don't feel they have a credible alternative to switch to.

zbuc 15y ago
Yep, your last paragraph is what I've been feeling. I've anecdotally seen much different results from Google since Google + Your World... searching for technical documentation has become gross -- the same queries for myself and coworkers will return different results. But where is there to go? Duck Duck Go seems OK but I don't feel as comfortable using their UI as I do Google's. Probably just an issue of familiarity.