Google Labs is trialling a feature to allow users to vote search results up or down in the same way as Digg lets you Digg or bury stories.
Results that are buried will be permanently excluded for the keywords you buried them for.
What does this mean for search marketers?
For me it doesn’t mean much, I concentrate on user experience and the creation of clickable search results. For people without good titles and meta descriptions or spammy sites it means the world.
This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you’ll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made. Note that this is an experimental feature and may be available for only a few weeks.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
“Results that are buried will be permanently excluded for the keywords you buried them for.”
Does this mean for all Google users? So if a page maybe gets 100 thumbs down then Google remove it?
It seems to indicate in the quote that it’s just for your own PC and wont modify any other results for other users…
“If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you’ve made.”
The only fear if it was to bury results for all is that internet “hate groups?” could potentially damage the reputation of a competitor.
I think it will just affect your own results. However if a site gets hundreds of buries they would probably flag the site and the search results page for a manual review.
Gosh!I hate when google starts doing this…Are they also going to make a list called top googlers.
That’s going to be bad for competition
I can see the email spam now from friends…
Dear Patrick, can you vote up my search result for free ringtones?
Love
Ken
Wasn’t there a new search engine called “Google killer” in digitalpoint that based the serps on votes (similar as to what Google is experimenting) ?
They just open a new door to scammers..
Makes no sense. What if a competitive website-owner wants to click you down in ranking? This would be a highly manipulative strategy, and Google allows tour competitors ro rank you out. And it would even be legal!
Ted.
This is like personalised search results, i think it will be only for your username (if you’re logged in)
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