Or should that be Google personaliZed search? ;)

Anyway…. David Harry of the SEO Dojo has pulled together an interesting study about Personalised Search (how Google changes rankings based on various metrics included being signed into a Google account)

We decided to take a set of queries to build a session (task) in a space that may or may not be familiar to the respondents. The queries we used were;

‘antique lamps’
‘buy antique lamps’
‘buy lamps online’

We also asked them to tell us;

  1. Where they’re located (region/country)
  2. Which browser they’re using
  3. Cleared search history lately?
  4. Is personalized/search history on?
  5. Most common Google app used
  6. If they had searched for ‘lamps’ or furnishings in the last 60 days

The goal being to start understanding what may or may not be influencing the search result flux. While we had some questions to be answered, there was no initial bias (hypothesis) behind the analysis. It should also be noted that the entire collection process only lasted 4 days so that we could try our best to avoid any temporal anomalies.

Read the whole post and results here – Google re-ranking and personalized search study

This is a very difficult area to monitor and draw conclusions from – and an area I’ve certainly neglected. Hence the link. Worth a read.

Did you know when you link to a Hobo SEO post we have search engine friendly links back to your site if approved? Our comments are also search engine friendly you know (once you've commented on a few posts)! Do you need any more encouragement to get involved in the conversation ;)