Google have just launched Google SearchWiki.  This is a way of personalising your search results.  If you are signed into Google when you search eg “Ralph Lauren” you can then modify the search results with a promote button or a remove button.

e.g  The first result is for RalphLauren.com and second result for their UK site.  But they don’t sell online in the UK.  As Houseoffraser.co.uk have the best range of Ralph Lauren online in the UK you could click the promote button next to their result and then next time you search for “Ralph Lauren” using the same Google account House of Fraser appears first.

This ONLY affects your search results – No one else’s, though you can leave a comment next to a search result which anyone using the same search term will be able to view.  Equally as well as promoting you can remove.  Using the same example I could click remove for the You tube result for Ralph Lauren and it would never appear in my results again for this search term

Did that make sense.  Heres a video from Google which probably explains it clearer!

So that’s what it is.

But do we need this?  Would you find it useful?

I first read of this on Chris Bishop’s Online Marketing Blog He speculates that in the future Google will use this method of promoting and removing to affect search rank for anybody who searches?  This is an interesting thought that search results could be affected by other users view of results.  Though if they did this it could be open to abuse.

But I can’t see the point to it as it stands!  I realise a lot of people type a search phrase into Google rather than type a web address into the address bar, but whenever I do that I know the result I want will come first.  If I visit a site lots I just add to my bookmarks – sure this could be a pain if you work on multiple PC’s  but there are many Internet explorer or Firefox addons to allow you to sync your links.  I suppose Google’s video above is a good example.  If I had 5 biking trail websites I use a lot I could boost them all in the same search result – BUT why wouldn’t I just add 5 favourites to my Firefox/Internet Explorer to a biking trail folder?

What do you think?  Will you be using this?