Google Experimental Search Adds Personalized Page Ranking
Google has rolled out a new option in its Labs-based experimental search program which allows you to rank and re-order search results. The new experiment is reportedly showing up for select users only, but the help page says that the goal is to allow you to “influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results.”
The new options appear as a series of buttons on the search results page which allow you to star a page, reorder results and even add a URL to a site you think is relevant. Next to each page link there’s an up arrow and an “x” button for ranking and rearranging the results, and any changes you make will be remembered the next time you search those keywords.
In short, it more or less takes a page from social news sites like Digg orReddit and applies it Google searches, however, the important difference is that this appears to limited to the individual. In other words, Google isn’t reordering everyone’s search results based on aggregated feedback, it’s just re-ordering your results based on your feedback.
As with the rest of the Experimental search projects in Google Labs, don’t look for this to hit the main Google Search page any time soon. But, if nothing else, it shows that at least some parts of Google are open to the idea of incorporating user feedback alongside Google’s algorithm-based results.
[via Googlified]
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