Topic: Putting up a website
Your Google's search results are now personalized, as of Feb 2, 2007, according to this article by Danny Sullivan.
One of the pleasures of my day is to review my 'website traffic logs' to see how visitors have found my site, ie. what Google search terms did they use, what were they looking for. I often replicate such searches to see how accessible my site is - how close or far from the top of a search it is. I come upon other interesting sites along the way, sometimes completely unrelated. The magic of serendipity gives me the most useful answers and creative triggers and ideas.
It would seem that could end with the coming of Google's personalized search results. Google is tracking each individual user's search histories and returning results related to previous searches and sites visited by the user. This seems to me to lessen the probability of finding new results. My site traffic may or may not benefit from the change, but I fear that I, as a user of Google, will be the poorer for it. I thrive on the chance findings, just as I love the unforseen meetings and moments in life. And you, dear visitor, what do you think of all your Google search histories being tracked, stored indefinitely, and used to give you search results based upon your previous use/history?
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