The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
December 2005, Volume 4, Issue 12

Personalized Search: How Will It Affect Your Marketing Strategy?

by Ken Yamada, Marketing Strategist, iProspect

Last week I performed a search on Google (while I was also logged into my Google account) and was surprised to see that Japanese content sites were returned higher in the search results than sites containing content written in English. I noticed a tab in the upper right corner of my Google homepage that read “my search history” and realized that Google was considering my frequent visits to Japanese websites and automatically adjusting search results while I logged into my Google account.

Not that I usually spend evenings pouring over the latest patent filings, but this phenomenon intrigued me to such a degree that I just had to do a little research to see if there was any documentation about what Google was up to with their algorithm that would cause what I had experienced.

Sure enough — on October 27, 2005, Google filed U.S. Patent application 20050240580 entitled “Personalization of Placed Content Ordering in Search Results,” and most of its content provided specific information about how Google will store and use information gathered from its users.

Personalized Search

This patent reflects Google’s recent efforts to further narrow and refine its search engine results. But this time, the secret sauce goes beyond refinement of its algorithm. The new secret ingredient is data about the “individual.”

Theoretically, all search engines maintain metrics on how users are searching and clicking within each online vertical marketplace, as well as how many searches are being performed on a specific topic or phrase. This new patent is evidence that Google has started to perfect the application of this information in order to take search to the next level.

In fact, Google has recently rolled out a beta version of a new service called Google Personalized Search. By creating a Google account, search engine users can now opt to have their search history recorded, thereby proactively providing Google with information on what websites they clicked and what websites were not. Based on this history, via the functionality to which the patent speaks, Google will adjust the results customized for the user. In addition, users are able to suppress certain listings from appearing when logged into this service.

How to Optimize for Personalized Search

What does this mean to the marketer? This functionality is not a dramatic departure from how users use Google today. Do the search results include the website that the searcher wants? Does the information appearing on the Google results speak to his/her needs? If the messaging that appears on your natural search listings adequately conveys the relevance of your site to the user’s query, then personalized search will not be a detriment to your SEM efforts, but a value-add mechanism. Not only will you create more impressions and click-throughs, but Google will consider these statistics to enhance your relevancy and rankings.

The personalization of search results is going to bring some additional elements to the equation. Remember, your listings are not only governed by this new factor, but as personalized search becomes more prevalent, will be able manually suppress your listing from every being displayed if it’s not to their liking. Brand loyalty and messaging will start to play an ever more critical role in search engine marketing.

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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: December 2005, Volume 4, Issue 12

Personalized Search: How Will It Affect Your Marketing Strategy?

The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
December 2005, Volume 4, Issue 12