Google experimentation with customised search results
Created on Thursday, 14 April 2011 20:26 Published Date Hits: 259
Here’s the news you need to worry about:
Google is experimenting with customising the search results in an attempt to improve the user experience. Two things stand out here for webmasters who are starting to sweat: 1. This is still in Beta testing mode and there is not yet any indication that it will become a permanent feature. 2. As the experimentation works it puts tremendous pressure on a webmaster to optimise their site for relevancy in terms of organic search engine page results.
Here’s the news you need to worry about:
The search customisation allows a search user to arrange which results he’d like to see by adding or deleting pages and saving the search so that when he uses the same keywords again the search results which will come up are the ones he has dictated.
This means that if your website is not relevant and you are benefiting from fleeting traffic or accidental traffic suddenly you may well find that source of traffic completely drying up!
Google explains how all this works on their site and the screen shot below makes it obvious.
Is this a permanent change a user can make? No. At any time the user has the ability to revert back to what he had before.
