So my friend and I were playing around with Google search results and wondering why we were getting different results for simple phrases we searched on. After a few minutes I realized it was b/c of Google’s personalized search.

Personalized Search is a Google accounting setting that attempts adjust its search results based on search results you have clicked on before.

That is the good side of it.

Now for the bad. If you have a google account (gmail or one of google’s many other services) then you should check out the ‘Search History‘ link at the top of the Google homepage. This will show you in its entirety EVERY web search you have ever made on Google, broken down by day, subject, clicked on, searches with no clicks, total (mine was 4571) etc etc etc. That is just scary.

There is no need for that. Who actually goes back and looks at their search queries? at the bottom of the left hand page there is a ‘clear search history’ link. I cleared the entire history and paused all personalization services and history.

I know according to the Google privacy policy they still keep search logs, and maybe its just me, but removing this service at least from my sight makes me feel a lot better. Another reason to turn off the personalization service is, if any of you are a Search Account Manager, this may skew the results for your clients.

Google is getting more and more invasive and I don’t like it