Personalization

The customer who says "I don't like that" is loathed by companies everywhere.  Their ideal customer says "I don't like that," explains why, and offers a reasonable suggestion, instead.  Microsoft is trying to bring users possessing this mindset to an experimental search engine called U Rank.

For anyone who's read my blog posts for a while or who saw me speak in San Jose earlier this year you'll know that I'm particularly interested in personalization and specifically, Google's patents on the subject. It's because of this that the launch of 23andme yesterday was particularly interesting though I have to say, I haven't seen anything in any of the patents on how this ties together.

This year, Google made its personalized search service much more the default for many users. Other search engines have user data that could be used to reshape search results. This session looks at existing and possible moves in the space.

Many of you know that I spent the last few years at ibm.com, focusing in large measure on personalization. Eight years ago, when we first started looking at personalization, Amazon was the only Web site doing it successfully, but times have really changed. I realized how much has changed last week while travelling in Canada.

… as we know it. On February 2, 2007 Google launched its big push into personalized search results. This was, to many, a dark day as SEO’s scrambled to determine exactly what this meant for the industry and for our clients. Different results showing up for different people? What are ranking reports if what you see differs from what I see? Who’s right? And of course, how do I prove it?

Below is the full transcript of the interview with Marissa Mayer on personalization of search results. For commentary, see the Just Behave column on Searchengineland. Gord: It's a little more than two weeks ago since Google made the announcement that personalization would become more of a default standard for more users on Google.  Why did you move towards making that call?

What is not lost with the personalization of search: Important components of search marketing have always been and will always be increasing quality traffic, increasing sales, and increasing profit. These are the ultimate indicators of success for any search marketing campaign. The introduction of personalized results for users does not change the importance of these indicators or goals in any way.

Personalization of Search and its implications for SEO...