Embracing Technology

If you’re a Google user (who’s not?), chances are, you might have noticed that there is a Up Arrow button and an X button beside the search results links.

They are for the new feature Google launched today as “SearchWiki”.

However, it only applies to Google users, and they have to sign in to their accounts to enable that.  One very important thing to note: The changes you make only affect your own searches.

Advantage/Usage:

1. You can promote your search results up to the top of the list. Why? Maybe you’re fond of the site at the 5th, or 10th or the next page. So you wouldn’t what to keep them at the bottom right?
2. You can remove the ones you promoted by clicking on the X or removing them.
3. You can place comments to those site and provide extra information on the result.

Points to consider

1. Google might promise privacy, but I believe they can use information based on the users’ search patterns for ranking queries.
2. That would potentially remove some sites trying to work their way up through SEO.
3. Or that would also potentially add more sites up if they could create a mass Google accounts and promote a certain site? This I’m not sure, but it is worth a ponder.

We’ll see how it goes a few more months down the road when information collected reaches a certain level.

Check out the official Google announcement on SearchWiki here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html

View the Youtube introduction video: