Google’s Personalized Search – Big Changes To How Sites Can Rank

There’s a Buzz in SEO Circles About What Google’s New Changes Might Mean

On December 4th, Google made a big announcement about a switch to “personalized search” that didn’t really grab too much attention. But I am aware of this new search results development, and thought it worthy of mentioning.

Googe’s official name for personalized search is “Web History”. There are two options: Signed-Out Web History and Signed-In Web History.

Keeping my explanation short, “personalized search” means Google can now determine what your web surfing habits are and if you seem to favor certain sites over other sites, such as whether you consistently like to go to Overstock.com rather than Like.com, and starts to give Overstock a rankings boost. Or Target’s website instead of Wal-Mart’s. Somehow, someway (their secret) Google has the ability to memorize your web surfing habits. And mine, and anyone else’s. Thus, you will start seeing more of your “favorite most often visited websites” listed, perhaps for searches where those sites weren’t showing up before for you.

Before you get all worried about invasion of privacy issues, which has been a point of concern for many, Google offers us the ability to accept or refuse having personalized search results shown to us. Maybe you’ll feel better knowing that a person’s searching history is only kept for 180 days. Plus, you can delete that history at any time, but even if you don’t, it can’t actually be viewed by anyone other than Google. So Google claims privacy should not be a concern for us.

Also, in case you didn’t know, ALL the major search engines have recorded what you search on for many, many years. That’s just one of the many ways they determine ranking positions. Now Google is simply using the recorded data to further refine the results you can see.

Remember – you don’t have to choose to sign in to personalized search … but maybe a lot of your potential customers will.

How Could Personalized Search Affect Your Website Traffic, You Ask?

First, let’s talk basics. Personalized search will most likely affect ranking positions. Where ranking positions have sometimes been prone to vary depending upon which Google data center you live near (there are exceptions but I’m trying to keep this simple), now those sites one person favors might very well not rank the same for another person if both people search for exactly the same keyword phrase.

However, everything about this new ranking change isn’t set-in-cement. Such as … the website of a local bakery probably won’t be affected quite the same since a local bakery is just that … local and unique to the services offered. Or a local car mechanic, dry cleaners, etc.

So if you’ve been real proud of those top ranking positions you’ve held for quite awhile, you just might find you’re NOT holding a top ranking based upon the searching tendencies of the particular searcher in question. Follow me here? To further explain – your grandmother may not get the same results as you do because most likely the two of you search for quite different topics.

Is Google’s personalized search reason for those of us battling to gain top rankings, or to continue to keep our top rankings, to get all crazy and worried? Um, not really. Not in my estimation, nor in the estimation of many respected SEO gurus.

What Google’s new search option means is that we need to continue to utilize good solid optimization basics on each and every page of our site, being:

• Make sure your web pages are accessible (well thought out navigational structure and hierarchy).
• Utilize the keywords that searchers employ within your Title and meta tags, and content.
• Over-delivery quality, informative content that visitors to your site will find useful and valuable.
• Try to earn editorial links from good sources related to your niche.

So, when all is said and done with any shift or change in ranking algorithms, the core issues I just listed above are ones that haven’t gone by the wayside, nor probably ever will. I’ve preached those four key points to all my SEO clients over the years and will continue to do so. And though yes, sometimes gaining top rankings isn’t a easy slam-dunk, by sticking to those simple points most all of us will ultimately see our sites holding great ranking positions.