Google has extended its personalized search results to worldwide users – not just those signed into their Google account. So now when you search with Google, it will provide results that are aimed at higher relevancy to you as an individual user, as opposed to relevancy for the average person.
For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes.
The feature has been available to Google users who have accounts, are signed in, and have their web history enabled (on Google) for a while. Now it appears to just be the standard way of delivering search results to everybody.
You’ll know when Google customizes results because a ‘View customizations’ link will appear on the top right of the search results page. Clicking the link will let you see how Google has customized your results and also let you turn off this type of customization.
What Does This Mean for Organic SEO?
Our agency has never promised search placement results (such as we’ll get you the #1 ranking for a particular keyphrase) because we believe it’s unethical. Now for certain search phrases it’s impossible to make that promise. One user’s search results could look significantly different than another user right across the hall. What we do promise with our internet marketing services is to increase lead generation and conversion, which in the end is the only metric that should matter.
Personalized search, in addition to Google’s recent announcement it will include real-time results from social media sites, will play to the strengths of companies with truly integrated web marketing strategies. Long tail keywords will become even more important and companies may have to rely more on Adwords for lead generation.
What about Privacy?
If you’re worried about privacy, Google lets you turn personalized search off altogether. For signed-in users, all you have to do is remove web history from your Google account. For signed out users, click “web history” in the top right corner of a search results page, then click “disable customizations.” You can also just clear your browser’s cookies.