Google has announced SearchWiki, which is a new set of functionality that users with Google accounts can use to customize their results on any given search. SearchWiki allows users to move specific results up or down in rankings so that they appear in the preferred order when the same search is done in the future.
UPDATE: Newsfactor reports that as Searchwiki is being phased in, SearchMash (“Google’s experimental search interface, a non-branded search engine that Google used to test new technology”) is being phased out.
SearchWiki also allows you to post comments on results, such as notes to yourself, but you can also see what other people have said about them as well.
In addition, you can add and remove sites to your liking. So for example, if I want to search for my own web presence, but want to filter out other Chris Crums that aren’t me, I can do so.
To get a better idea of how this thing works, watch the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Pl1H0dIXE
Search Gets More Dynamic
“This new feature is an example of how search is becoming increasingly dynamic, giving people tools that make search even more useful to them in their daily lives,” says a post at the Official Google Blog. “We have been testing bits and pieces of SearchWiki for some time through live experiments, and we incorporated much of our learnings into this release. We are constantly striving to improve our users’ search experience, and this is yet another step along the way.”
What About Rankings?
Google makes it a point to mention that this will in know way impact rankings when other users do searches, so before anybody gets all worked up, don’t worry about that. But, this certainly does play into the personalized search scenario that can affect how those with Google accounts see search results. It seems that if they have already set a number of results to their liking, they are less likely to see results that would otherwise appear toward the top.
A New World of Search
The release of SearchWiki makes it pretty clear that Yahoo isn’t the only one doing compelling things with dynamic search. I think the next year or so is going to be the most interesting one we’ve had in a while when it comes to how we use search engines to get our results. With Yahoo obviously stepping up their efforts to change the game, I think we’re going to see some very cool things come out of the competition between the top two search engines.
