Google Search Gets Personal With Everyone
Personalization of search results has long been a point of great interest and contention in the search world. The battle has raged on, particularly regarding Google’s personalization efforts, about privacy for the Google user and how it will affect the search engine optimization industry.
One of the ways that Google’s personalization efforts have been ‘limited’ is that the only people that have any personalization measures applied to them were those who were logged into their Google account. That was the case at least until last Friday when Google announced that their personalization efforts now apply to everyone regardless of whether you have a Google account or not.
Google keeps a history of your Web searches for up to 180 days, using what it says is an anonymous cookie in your browser to track your search queries and the results you most frequently click on. For several years it has allowed those with Google accounts to receive customized search results based on that history, but now even those without Google accounts will receive tailored results based on a history of their search activity, Google said in a blog post late Friday.
So what’s the big deal? Well, if you are an seo practitioner it means that your job gets a bit harder but this should be no surprise since this change has been happening for years now. What makes this one different is that it now applied to all searches. What is going to make privacy watchdogs antsy is the fact that is an opt-out program. Sure, Google made a nice video and explained this process in their blog but the overwhelming majority of Google users don’t even know Google has a blog and don’t care. Also, they don’t pay attention to this kind of stuff so opting out is a nice PR move but not likely to be widely adopted.
So as to limit the confusion here is Google’s chart on how this whole thing shakes out. Please excuse the quality of the image.
Hope Google finds exactly what you are looking for! Don’t forget to opt-out if you’re creeped out!
Google Requests Hold On Book Settlement Hearings To Retool The Agreement
In the wake of last Friday’s objections to the Google Book lawsuit settlement, Google along with the two other parties that sued it, have asked the judge to delay further hearings on the settlement until an amended one can be put forth. Google, Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, made this request [...]
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Is Google Deliberately Sabotaging Bing’s Search Listing?
Despite the millions of dollars Microsoft is spending in an attempt to get us to use Bing, it’s apparently still well aware of the hand that feeds it.
A lot of searchers are still conditioned to begin all web browsing at Google, and Microsoft knows that it’s crucial that Bing is easily found. So, you can imagine their angst at seeing the following in a search for Bing:
Yep, the second result for Bing suggests searchers might wan to stick with Google for a while. Now, if you read the snippet, you’ll see why we even got to this situation–a power outage last Friday temporarily took out Bing’s Travel site.
Apparently, Google’s spider has been on vacation since then:
Notice, Google hasn’t re-indexed the page since July 4th! Do you smell a conspiracy theory? Since when does it take Google that long to revisit a site as popular as Bing?
Bing employees may not be crying foul, but they’re disturbed enough to send a public tweet to Google.
It’s kind of hard to puff up your chest and go cap in hand at the same time, don’t you think?
(via)
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Online Identity Land Grab On Across All Social Media
As with most things, the news about social media is not news to those who have been around for a while. The reality is that the largest proportion of social media users are relatively new to the party. While this makes social media veterans groan and cry into their energy drinks it’s just the facts. While most veterans of Twitter and other social media outlets get the idea of “social media identity theft” most mortals don’t equate identity theft with anything other than their finances.
The New York Times ran an article about this problem of maintaining your online identity and what it can entail. When it hits the mainstream press then we know that there is a real issue (not because it is breaking the news but more so because it has finally caught up to the news). The Times says
Since Facebook started giving out customized Web addresses like facebook.com/yourname last Friday, some 9.5 million people have rushed to grab their top choice.
On Twitter, public fights have broken out over so-called impostor accounts, like those that should probably be in the hands of Kanye West or Bank of America.
And somewhere out there on the Web, another new service or social network is on the rise, threatening to start yet another online land grab.
Many companies and individuals who are just getting acquainted with the online new world order are experiencing frustration with the process. A great example is that of RCN. While not a household name nationwide the company did generate $188 million in revenue in Q4 of ’08. Not bad by most standards. In an attempt to get their vanity URL for their Facebook fan page they were stopped by the Facebook rules and regs.
RCN, a cable and telephone service based in Herndon, Va., submitted a request last week to Facebook to secure facebook.com/rcn. But then Facebook said companies would need to have more than 1,000 fans on their pages to be eligible for the custom address program. RCN’s recently created page had 527 fans as of Wednesday.
RCN executives say they are frustrated with Facebook’s rules and are worried that they could lose what they suspect could be valuable real estate. Possible competitors for the address include people and organizations with those initials, along with the dreaded squatters.
This is not uncommon these days as the small to medium enterprise level companies just start to understand what is happening in the social media world whether they want to get involved or not.
Individuals have the same issues. On a personal note, I was done in by a short family vacation and didn’t get to Facebook in time to get my vanity URL without the use of my middle initial. No big deal but evidence that unless you are at the ready anyone can stake a claim to anything in the modern day land grab that is social media identities.
Even social media success stories like Dell Computer have their own troubles.
Digital squatters are still trying, creating potential headaches for companies. For example, Dell grabbed facebook.com/dell, but Jeremy Fancher, a student at Washington University in St. Louis, registered facebook.com/dellcomputer and plans to try to sell it. A Dell spokesman declined to comment.
“I think it would be sort of funny if another computer company buys it,” Mr. Fancher said. “It all illustrates how murky the water is when signing up for these accounts.”
Of course, the biggest problem may be the attitude of people like Mr. Fancher who have plenty of online experience but no business experience. They are opportunists. Since that’s a hallmark of capitalism it’s hard to get completely upset but what seems to easily get shelved in this environment are basic moral and ethical tenets all in the name of making a quick buck. Sure, Facebook, says these ID’s are not transferrable but how will they stop a purchase outside of their system (i.e Fancher to Dell) that is simply an agreement to turn the account and all the access data to Dell without even touching Facebook’s system?
These are murky waters for sure. It’s up to each entity to protect itself because I doubt that people in general will suddenly turn altruistic and respect others implied ownership of trademarks etc. Not gonna happen. In fact, it’s more likely that as new opportunities outside of just Twitter and Facebook emerge as the next greatest social media outlets (niche communities maybe?) this game will escalate and it is likely to benefit one group greatly: lawyers.
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