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Pnïk

George R [PersonRank 10]

Thursday, October 7, 2010
13 years ago9,405 views

Another thread mentions "google.com/Pnïk".
http://blogoscoped.com/forum/174839.html#id174850

[google.com Pnïk] produces results for "Pnïk".
http://www.google.com/search?q=google.com+Pn%C3%AFk

[google.com/Pnïk] produces results for "pink". This seems to alter the search term without warning or notice. The results page does not say it changed the search term. It also does not say "did you mean".
http://www.google.com/search?q=google.com%2FPn%C3%AFk

Note that these results might change once this forum thread is indexed.

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

13 years ago #

This is quite interesting. When I search for "Pnïk" I also find that Google doesn't tell me it changed the search term. But it does display at the bottom of the page a link to "View Customizations".

When I click on that link it tells me that Google customized those results based on my web history, and gives me a link that says "If you're curious, you can see what a search for google.com/Pnïk looks like without these improvements".

Comparing the two result pages shows that Google boosted the results for a Google Answers question about the color pink (moved from position 5 in the non-personalized results to position 2). That's reasonable, because I was a Google Answers Researcher and my Web History would be full of Google Answers pages.

But what's interesting is that this Blogoscoped page was in the non-personalized results at position 2 and got moved down to 5 to make way for the Google Answers result. Since December 2006 I would have visited Blogoscoped many more times than Google Answers, so I would expect it to rise in the personalized results.

On the other hand, if Google wanted to, they could have seen from the Referer header that I had clicked through from GeorgeR's link on this very page, and Google could have removed this page from the results on the assumption that I am already viewing it. Apparently they don't do that.

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