Just what is Google talking about? Anyone can explain this post?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/personally-speaking.html

They say they'll merge the personalized homepage with personalized search and provide you a unified personalized experience.

But I don't understand this either. I think they try to make more people use the personalized search and stay signed in.

<<Today, we're taking another step toward making personalization more available to you by combining these two into a single signed-in experience. Now, when you're signed in, you'll have access to a personalized Google—one that combines personalized search results and a personalized homepage.>>

Please don't tell me that until now if you searched from Google IG, you didn't get personalized search results.

Google links to the search history page using the word "recommendations", which adds to confusion. The search history page, above the login, also points out some changes, though it is unclear to me what precisely changed.

For those who enabled search history:
- do you still sometimes see "Turn OFF Personalizd Search (Beta) for these results" in the search results?

Because their blog's "If you don't want to see personalized results, just sign out of your Google Account" sentence almost makes it sound like you now have to completely sign out of Google to prevent personalized results.

<<do you still sometimes see "Turn OFF Personalizd Search (Beta) for these results" in the search results?>>

No, but you can still turn off search history.

<<Google links to the search history page using the word "recommendations">>

The "interesting items for you" gadget is available as a new section in Search History.

Another change: you don't have to sign in again to visit Search History.

Gawd, I hate personalized search of any kind – I hope they always let us opt out if we want to, even when we're logged in. I go to a search engine to expand my horizon, not be stuck in my yesterday's mindset... I want to get an objective, rather neutral look on the world. It's supposed to make most sense for those ambiguous, context-less queries, but when I enter the ambigous "best place to live" into Google I don't want them to tell me about the best places to live in the city I happen to live at the moment, I want them to tell me about a place I may move to one future day! When I enter the ambigous "good books" then I don't want to know about books that are like books I read before, I want to find out about what other people consider good books!
I go to Google to find challenging opinions and to learn new stuff, not to hear stuff from contexts I'm already familiar with. We need to stay away from consultants that always tell us what we want to hear, and that goes for search engines too.

I'm not a fan of personalized searches either, especially when i'm doing dummy tests for my website customers etc. How annoying to have to log-out...

... if that's what the blog post is about, could this be the beginning of the end?

After reading Google's announcement for a third time, and revisiting its original announcement about personalized search (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/06/search-gets-personal.html), I think I understand what's going on: Personalized Search has graduated from Google Labs, and is now live for anyone who is signed into a Google account. (Or did it graduate from Google Labs before now?)

Personalized search is fine, if you want it. But I don't want it. Nor do I want to turn it off by signing out, or by turning off search history.

Doesn't Google understand that some people who are signed into their accounts – and some people tracking their search history – might prefer the regular, unpersonalized, Google results? (Personally – pun intended – I use my Google account for several things besides personalization – Gmail, Blogger, etc. – and my search history to store my queries and results.)

"personally speaking" – I did not get what they are trying to do!!

>> (Or did it graduate from Google Labs before now?) <<

Yep :P

The mystery goes on. It's blatantly just a public stunt...

<<Personalized Search has graduated from Google Labs>>

Nope. The services from the right sidebar of http://labs.google.com are placed in order. So Personalized Search graduated Google Labs before Google Video and Google Docs.

The big change is that anyone will get personalized search even though they didn't sign up for personalized search / search history.

>>"The big change is that anyone will get personalized search even though they didn't sign up for personalized search / search history."

Is this not a privacy issue then ?? Users need to have an opt-out method -correct ??

I'm not quite sure what they are doing.

But when I went to login to Google video there is a message above the Google Accounts login.

Image: http://mpwebwizard.com/images/googleaccnts.png

It seems Google is personalising all services.

Could it be a massive hack by someone?

Thanks for clarifying, Ionut. I wonder when personalized search graduated from the Labs, and what happened upon graduation?

* * *

Rather than opt out, I'd prefer opt in. I don't want to have to turn off personalized search – or sign out of my account, or stop my search history – every time I search. Is that too much to ask?

I guess Google wanted to raise the awareness of this feature (personalization). That's why they put that promo in a lot of places (Gmail, Google Video etc.)

I think the only way to disable personalized results is to disable search history, and to not use Google Bookmarks, Pers. Homepage etc. No data, no personalization.

I asked Google press just what this post announced. Here's what they replied:

<<In a nutshell, this post is about how we've recently enabled Google Search to be more personalized with Google Accounts. When you're signed into Google Accounts, you'll now get more relevant, useful search results, recommendations and other personalized features. For example, if you use Google Bookmarks or Google Search History, you'll get more targeted web search results and recommendations for videos or gadgets. You can easily access these recommendations by adding the "Interesting items" gadget directly to your personalized homepage.

Ultimately, our goal is to deliver the most useful, relevant information possible. Personalization is a way to deliver results, recommendations and other content that are even more likely to be exactly what a user is looking for. After all the positive feedback we’ve received from users who’ve signed up for personalized search results, we want to extend this benefit to all Google Account users.>>

So, those who don't use Google Search History should be "safe" if they don't like personalization...

Dear Google,

I want to stay signed in to my Google Account. And I want my Google Search History.

But I don't want Personalized Search.

What should I do?

Sincerely,

Loves Google, Hates Personalized Search