Google started 2011 with a bang, applying a content farm filter to search results and upping the game by picking off spam content. In their war against content farms they now are recruiting search users.
The move is experimental and available only to Chrome users and it gives them a Chrome extension which allows them to block sites from their web results and place them in a personal block list.
The extension, according to the official Google wording, will transmit data about the sites you block to Google and it will also transmit data about sites which you choose to unblock. Google hopes that by studying these patterns it will be able to use the judgement of its Chrome users to further refine the quality of the search results it serves by editing out of them offending URLs.
The Google Block option will look like this:
Google also allows you the option to see blocked sites:
And you can edit, of course, the sites you block so you can unblock them if you think you made a mistake:
In terms of delivering personalized search results this is another step Google is taking in that direction and it is a positive one.
However there are a few issues here of course. First the experiment will only work if sufficient numbers of Chrome users download and use the extension. Then Google will need some time to tabulate and filter the data gained from this. The reasoning is that over the course of let’s say, a year, search users will filter out sites which they consider to be spam sites and the sites which pick up the largest number of blocks will be singled out for close Google attention and perhaps even deletion from the Google Index.
It is as yet unsure just how long this would take and how effective it will be. It is however a clear signal from Google to Content Farms everywhere: You can no longer hide.
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