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Google has announced that it will be dropping the searchwiki feature from the search engine, and introducing Google stars instead.
These work in the same way as you may have become used to with Google Mail, News and Reader. The Google blog states:
“With stars, you can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant.”
For those who actually used SearchWiki, don’t worry, your edits will be saved.
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It is only a couple of weeks since we posted about the differing opinions on the Google SearchWiki feature in the SERPS. This week, despite previous assurances from Google that the results were not going to be used to affect rankings etc, it appears the sands have already shifted.
This article at El Reg shows how there is now a proposal for the agnostic algorithm to be ‘manipulated’ by human hands. The uproar has so far been quiet, but it will undoubtedly grow. The independence or objectivity of the results is vital to the trust that is placed in the value of Google as a search engine, not just for its users but particularly for those of us in the SEO world.
If, as we may be led to believe by this week’s statement, no matter how much we follow the ‘laws’ of SEO and SEM, the results can be interfered with by staff at Google, and may well be based on SearchWiki opinion, which as we all know can be affected by merely a few A list bloggers, then SEO practioners may be in for a very hard time of it in 2009.
Google launched its SearchWiki this week amid, as ever, a plethora of differing opinions. To see the SearchWiki, log in to your Google account and try a search. You will see two new icons next to the results – an up arrow to promote a result higher in the SERPS, and a cross to remove a listing from the results. There is also a comment bubble for each search result, as well as options to see all of your SearchWiki comments and those by others for that particular search.
The SearchWiki has been designed to allow Google users who are logged in to re-rank the results for a particular search to suit them, and also to add public comments to any search result. Whether the re-ranking of the SERPS will then affect the overall search results at some future date seems to be a moot point, although at present Google are saying that the customised search results will only be visible to that user. Adding comments to the SERPs in this way, with no option to make them private, is not particularly popular either, it seems.
Neither is the fact that you are automatically opted in (which never goes down well with Internet users) and that there is no opt out provided by Google. However, a script has already been developed to disable the SearchWiki which seems to be so popular that perhaps Google will take note…
Undoubtedly, as this is a typical Google Beta, more changes will follow. In the meantime, I think many are failing to see the actual use beyond the move towards customising and personalising searches for each user. This may well drive SEOs into a new era of thinking out of the standard SEO toolbox, as ranking may well be dead after all.
Meanwhile, those with privacy issues close to heart may be disheartened to read the theory that it is now possible to use the SearchWiki as a method to send coded messages, publicly. From a promotional point of view, rather than the conspiracy angle, we may yet see exciting new online treasure hunts and codebreaking competitions starting to promote brands and products using this feature!
