Google using personalization to improve search - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

Google using personalization to improve search Matt 23 May 2005

8 comments Latest by GOETE

According to “With Its Home Page, Google Could Get a Bit Closer to Its Users” (NY Times), the true goal of the new customized Google home page is to improve search results. An analyst says, “Right now, Google knows nothing about their users. But if they can get the user’s permission for this, and give them better search results based on what stories they’ve read or e-mails they’ve gotten on the site in the past, that’s where it pays off.”

The article also notes the impact of customization at Yahoo: My Yahoo users account for only 23 percent of all Yahoo visitors, but they represent 49 percent of total time spent and 51 percent of pages viewed.

8 comments so far (Jump to latest)

Hrush 23 May 05

Here we go again.

Time for the Google-backlash wagon and the Googlers to square off once more about whether Google is abandoning its roots.

If I could suggest a slightly different perspective — Google is NOT abandoning its roots. This is likely to be just a low priority project at Google Labs aimed squarely at giving Yahoo the shakes.

Google’s roots lie in crunching data in order to connect people to information; and with all the other initiatives they have going, they are forging ahead with this agenda.

Also, I, for one, can honestly say that I have never personalised a portal. It’s too much of a pain and despite what the article says, my guess is that 23% is an astronomically inflated number.

And I simply goggle in amazement at the chaps who say, “Ah, well Yahoo’s been doing this for 4 years now, I don’t think Google can catch up.”

Did everyone forget Google Maps? Mapquest, Mapblast and others have all been doing maps for over 4 years and it took Google to come in there and innovate.

Adam Codega 23 May 05

People are jumping all over this and calling it the end of simplicity. The customized version is still optional and nothing has changed the main page. Customization, though, is easy. I’m not an info nut but it’s nice to see an easy to read weather forecast on the frontpage. And if you have Gmail, why not do it..

Dan H 24 May 05

“And if you have Gmail, why not do it.”

Yup. I think that’s what the gobs of Yahoo “customized” portal users think as well. They have Yahoo email and a cookie that logs them into the portal when they go to yahoo.com. I think I customized my.yahoo.com once and had an @yahoo.com email once. I never really “used” it.

breaking 24 May 05

NICK AND JESSICA JUST FILED FOR DIVORCE!!!!

BORING 24 May 05

BORING!