Google Searchwiki – Personalizing Your Search Engine and What it Means for SEO.

How it works:

After every search request (when logged into your Google account) you will be presented with three additional options placed next to each search result.  Options to: Re-Rank, Delete, and Add a Comment to each particular entry.

By Clicking the ‘X’ next to any entry, you remove it from your list, dropping it into a collective bucket of “junk”.  All entries below it are now moved up in rank.  Simple!  It is worth noting that any entries you delete are recoverable and available to view as an option at the bottom of the search listings.

Don’t feel like deleting anything from your search list?  No problem.  The other option is to Click the ‘Up Arrow’ next to the entry, pushing it above the competition, and re-ranking it for you.  These preferences carry over to multiple search phrases as well.  For instance, rating a listing higher under a search for “glasses” will also affect those listings when a search is performed for “eye glasses”.

So What Does this mean for SEO?

Search Engine Optimizers rejoice!  While the user based experience becomes more customized for the individual, it does not affect the keyword rankings for other users—so all of those long hours creating a coherent SEO strategy are still worth your time and effort.  What HAS changed then, you might be asking?  Each time a user ranks one of their items higher Google registers, counts, and reports this along-side the line item.  So users are able to see how popular an item is by seeing how many users moved it UP in rank vs. how many users removed it from the search listing.

Lastly, Google has also given us the ability to add “notes” and “comments” to each of the listings given to us in any given search.  The potential is there for spam abuse, especially on the comment box so take these new options with a grain of salt.