There can be several reasons why a search marketing professional would want to be “ghost-googling” (i.e. searching Google without Google to know you are searching it):
- He/She may want to see absolutely “fair” results (not influenced by his/her recorded browsing preferences, territory, etc);
- He/She may want to be served “non-targeted” Google ads;
- He/She may want the competitors to be unaware they are being watched (have you ever noticed any [site:yoursite.com] type of Google referrals? This is quite enough to suspect someone is after you).
So here are a few steps to take to ensure some preferred level of Google privacy:
[Btw, I do see the irony behind trying to make our sites visible to Google while getting invisible ourselves :)]
Contents
1. Use Google Privacy Greasemonkey Scripts:
GooglePrivacy is a cool Greasemonkey script that is claimed to work the following way:
- It replaces all tracking cookies with faked data.
- It disables the script sending Google your browsing records:
Normally each link on a google search page has an onmousedown script that sends a request to their servers telling them what you clicked on, it’s an invasion of privacy and it slows down your connection.
Remove Google re-directs: I’ve listed three Greasemonkey scripts turning Google tracking re-directs within SERPs into direct link for privacy and usability purposes.
2. Configure Your FireFox Browser:
Try accessing this page to see how your browser is passing your referrer string. You can configure FireFox to hide your referrer string (hat tip to Distilled) by following these easy steps:
- In the Firefox address bar, type about:config
- In the “Filter” box, type “referer“
- Double click the line named ‘network.http.sendRefererHeader‘
- In the dialog box, enter 0 and click “OK“
- Click referer checking page to check that Firefox isn’t passing your referer string (make sure that the first line is blank).
3. Disable Google Web History
Obviously you are well aware of the fact that unless you opt out, Google will be saving your search and browsing history to “improve the search quality” and show you personalized results.
Web History uses the information from your web history or other information you provide us to improve your Google search experience, such as improving the quality of your search results and providing recommendations. In addition to enabling the Web History functionality, the information we collect when you use Web History may be shared among all of our services in order to provide you with a seamless experience and to improve the quality of our services.
You are free to pause the feature as well as remove items already stored.
Obviously, you can turn off personalization of search results by simply signing out of Google account.
4. Configure or Uninstall Google Toolbar
That’s never been a secret that Google is using its official toolbar statistics:
Any time you use the Google Toolbar to contact Google, such as by sending a search query to Google, the Toolbar sends standard, limited information including your machine’s IP address and one or more cookies. This data is retained in Google’s server logs and protected according to our general Privacy Policy.
There’s almost no definitive way to tell how much this influences the search results returned to you personally but to be on the safe side, you may want to block this leak too.
You are given the option to disable the user stats via Google Toolbar settings:
- Go the Toolbar’s settings (
icon). - (Firefox) click the Search tab.
- Deselect the “Send usage statistics to Google” checkbox.
- Click Save.
Alternatively, you can just uninstall the toolbar. Here are a few addons for you to perform its most useful features:
- SearchStatus, though it has been slower than the official toolbar;
- And this post of mine lists two alternative addons that offer quick access to Google services (like Gmail, image search, etc).
5. Anything Else?
Did I miss anything? Add your tips in the comments!
Also, don’t forget: What is the dark web 😉
Latest posts by Ann Smarty (see all)
- Semantic Research + AI = Win - May 15, 2023
- Visual Quotes. HOW TO: Quote Using Text-to-Image Tools (and Go Viral) - Aug 9, 2022
- Digital Marketing Tools: Best New SEO Software I Use - Apr 5, 2022
Great article. Thanks.
I’ve been using scroogle.org of late and have been pretty happy with the results.
I kind of like the domain name, too! 🙂
Brilliant!
I’ve got two questions:
1) How about using proxies to make your search?
2) On the toolbar issue, if you use a third-party toolbar service that uses Google Search, is that sending your IP address just as if you were using the Google Toolbar? What would be your suggestion for “ghosting” then?
Thanks for this brilliant post.
regarding 5)
I would want to add, that you could use a set of proxies to send your queries over.
After all it’s your (offices) IP which leaves the most important trace.
I know that Google does co-relation of accounts via IP addresses, and the only way to avoid that is to get DISTINCT own private proxy IPs for each google account or session
(in addition to clearing cache/cookies)
Obviously this is more advanced/expensive – and I would NOT recommend to go with cheap/”free” proxies
Best Regards
Christoph
Could you apply these methods to other search engines?
I know for me, I’ve simply kept a separate browser installation (on my Mac, it’s Safari) that I use without ever logging in to Google. This can take care of a lot of the issues for privacy with cookies and details, although it still does not prevent Google from tracing IPs.
I’ve found that staying logged out tends to show much more “raw” results with that browser than my other searches through my main browser (Firefox) when I’m logged in. That, and it’s a pretty easy fix, if you want to just check unaffected listing results without having to adjust things.
@eric – yes this is what i have done. Its easier than turning everything off each time and messing on. I use IE8 for personal stuff, Google Chrome for clean search (personalised all off), and firfox for all the extensions.
Thank you for the post, some great ideas for retaining your privacy also very useful if you are looking for fair results.
Hi Ann . . . I read a lot of your stuff at Sphinn as well. This article is great, and I can already see some other applications for some of these tools you suggested. I bookmarked this one, because I for sure need to read this a few more times. Nice work!
I protect myself against Google spyware.
I’ve set Opera to NoCookies NoReferrer NoPlugins NoImageAnimations.
And then i allow settings only for those sites
that really need them. RightClick,
EditSitePreferences
Overall faster and safer web 😀
The HUGE problem is that i cant properly
protect friends and families computers
(n00bs are screwed)
http://www.scroogle.org/scraper.html
as startpage helps. And EmptyCookiesOnExit.
And ad-blocking.
I think reading is a very important topic. I read tons of blogs in my niche to come up with ideas and topics that I haven’t covered or that I need to cover more of. Great list here
Google search for sites with content-spesific articles and the concept of SEO site..please, visit the selebrity information in http://arvanna.blogspot.com
Hello, Annie!
Thanks for brief and importnat information about making search without Google “SpyGlass”… Annie, I need you help. Please refer me where to find those setting of Google toolbar as shown in your post? I can’t find that at all 🙁
Referrer in FF I am already disabled, but situaution with finding toolbar things is confusing me.
I knew Google was after my Data with the Toolbar. The reason I never used it and tried to get all people I know to deinstall it.
Thanks for the guide to erase the other tracks Google uses.
Excellent post. Very rare to read such informative publications.
Great tips!
For SEO professionals abroad or who’s proxy IP is registered outside of the US and who need to access google.com, the google.com/ncr (No Country Redirect) is handy to bypass the country TLD redirect.
Try also running Vidalia/Tor with proxy turned on (which you can speed up a notch with custom scripting), using FF without GTB installed.
🙂
Don’t use the Greasemonkey scripts myself but have already:
-turned off the Web History (you do need to remember to redo this if you clear your cookies)
-turned off usage in the Google toolbar
-turned off the referer in Firefox
Thanks for the reminders Ann!
Great post, I never even thought of doing that. Probably good to do if you use SEO tools…
Some pretty cool tips for sure, but I still think for absolute protection – using a proxy server is the way to go.
And no, it doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult. I set one up in less than 20 minutes for free, and it works like a charm.
Nice article on protecting privacy thanks for sharing
Thanks for the article.Nice article on protecting privacy
Block Google and Youtube AutoSuggest spyware.
Opera
urlfilter.ini
*clients*.google.*
*suggestqueries.google.*
Iron
adblock.ini
suggestqueries.google.
# * doesnt work
Privoxy (local proxy for Browsers in the LAN)
user.action
{ +block }
clients*.google.*
suggestqueries.google.
Great article. I do have one question that I’d love to get your advice on though pertaining to the topic. How do you find tweeps who are more on your level of popularity?
For instance, many of the people I follow are business men or tech writers, or even celebrities. While I find their tweets interesting and do try to interact with them, these are not always the best people to build these “meaningful relationships” with.
So how do I find the “smaller” or less popular people on twitter who are interested in the same topics I am and, more importantly, willing to build the same meaningful relationship with me? Thank you for sharing 🙂
A good and easy solution for Firefox
users is the GoogleSharing addon.
It’s a Google search proxy.
http://googlesharing.net
I had no idea you could filter out the referrer with Firefox, great tip! I’ll have to look more into the scripts as well.
Thank you for the tips. I also found that searches are specific to Google Data Centers and while you may see your keyword terms as #3 on Google in one data center, it can be off the first page on another data center.
That sound’s perfect. I’m sure this will be used by everyone, because it’s really helpful for all. Thanks for all the great info.
Thanks a lot! I’m very happy for the Info!
Why would you want to block them? Resistance is futile.
I love the variety of options you lay out. I personally just make sure i am logged out of any Google accounts and things seem to be fine.
do you think i should be doing more?
Had no idea that you could do this – thank you so much – love not having big brother looking over my shoulder! 😀
I always use Scroogle http://www.scroogle.org/ if I want to see realistic search results and no ads, SY
Annie – this is such a good post. I worked out a lo9ng time ago that result were very different from SE to SE depending on what tools and accounts were plugged in. So for all ranking enquiries I have used a stripped down version of firefox that tracks NOTHING! But I like the other ideas in your list and will put them to the test. Thanks for sharing – it gets a tweet and a share!
Matt
Stumbled upon this post and realize it’s a little dated although the suggestions are still good… in 2016 though there’s additional methods that are effective like online proxies, VPN services, etc… If privacy is important (even from Google) it may be worth paying a few bucks through a service like mullvad, paid version of hidemyass, instant proxies, etc, etc… Not only will services like these shield you from the big G it will also keep you anonymous to any other destination websites you visit.
It’s a little different in 2017 but the basics of what we use now are the same as then. We are just using different tools. It is cool to see where we have been to where we are and where we are going as an online marketing culture.