Personalized search is one of the controversial Google’s babies: first, it might sound great that you are supposed to be given just what you want (on the other hand, it is still questionable the machine can know better what I am up to); secondly, personalized search has become the real headache for SEOs: ranking fluctuations pose many problems for reporting and overall work evaluations.
Reliable SEO has recently released a report summering the results of the personalized search research involving data provided by volunteers (USA only).
The eight-page report contains plenty of useful information on:
- Rankings flux rate;
- Elements of personalization;
- What affects the rankings;
- How to adapting the SEO plan.
The report concludes:
At this point there may be just enough evidence to warrant further investigation but not enough to totally abandon rankings as an indicator in your SEO programs. If anything, there is evidence that makes a top ranking (1-4) more valuable than ever. These positions were shown to be the strongest with the least amount of movement due to re-ranking.
Post image: personalized cupcakes
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Great link. Id be curious to see what percentage of total search results are actually personalized. I have a feeling its pretty small at this point.
Hiya Ann thanks for the plug – we’re really ramping up the next round of research complete with a professional survey system and looking deeper into geo-targeting factors and other query types (transactional)… We also have a larger set of volunteers which should expand things as well.
As far as the total of personalization, as Chase asked, it really depends on the person. If you search for a lot of related terms/concepts it would be fairly high. If you did a lot of query revision, it would also kick in. There is no way to tell as it is a very ‘personal’ king of thing ;0)
IMO, personalized will be a great option for seo in near future because of highly competitive market, if some one wants to rank his website for keywords like “internet shopping” or “online shopping” a good seo can achieve rankings in 3 months, but that not just enough. Because all matters to be at top #4positions and in this case, IMO, its not possible. But to target a specific location lets say “California” it would be lot easier to rank in top with those keywords combination and i can see the traffic towards to website. Hence, chances of personalized search usage by a normal visitor would be 10%.
Personalized search sounds gr8 but it is difficult to predict whether it will be of great help or no … we already have googles i am feeling lucky but it is a button to avoid … but then again it is google the best bet is to wait and watch
How are Yahoo doing with personalised searched? Also whats up with the cupcake photos, I’ve seen them a few times on the blog 😉
thank you for the information about personalize search i hope so it will work thanks a lot .
Nice Muffines…
Thanks for sharing the article…
I was searching this topic for past few days.Now I got it.Thanks!
SEO Consultation personalized search has become the real headache for SEOs ranking fluctuations pose many problems for reporting and overall work evaluations in many way.
What a nice blog you have..thanks for all this information.