Google’s Blog recently announced a new method for customizing their user’s search experience, which will be available soon.
March 15, 2011 from http://googleblog.blogspot.com
Recognizing that the search results they provide may not be a perfect match, Google is now providing a search site-filter. Initially, Google released this feature as a part of their Google Chrome web browser in January 2011. Seeing that about 15% of Internet users browse using Google Chrome, Google recognized the benefit of offering this feature in their search engine in addition to Google Chrome (see Chrome market share).
Providing this personalized site-filtering feature enables users to avoid unrelated information and block undesirable websites from appearing in their search results. Whether it is because the website is offensive, low quality, or if a customer just doesn’t like it, they now have the option to exclude it from their search results. This feature is now available for people using Google Chrome version 9+, Internet Explorer 8+, and Firefox versions 3.5+ Internet browsers.
Search Results
Although this feature provides customers with a better search experience, could this be used to determine the future rank of a website? In their blog, Google states that they may eventually evaluate and use the data from this feature as a signal for ranking. Presently they are only attempting to offer customers an easy and more controlled search tool.
How It Will Work
When using a compatible browser the person performing the search will notice a “Block all example.com website results” next to the “cached” and “similar” links. These links are located next to the websites URL following the description. After receiving a confirmation request to block the site the results will be hidden until the user decides to deactivate the block. Once blocked, if the search results contain a blocked website a message is then displayed to the user stating some of the results have been hidden. The purpose of this message is to let them know that if they wish to see those particular results, they must first remove the site from the site filtering list.
Users can manage all of the blocked sites through the new settings page. On this page they can see a full list of the blocked sites, block any additional sites, as well as unblock sites that they now wish to view results for. The site-filtering feature sounds like a simple and great way to personalize your browsing as well as eliminate any unwanted results.
Look for this new feature on Google and remember that before experiencing this helpful tool you may need to update to the latest version of your web browser!
Thanks for reading!
Dustin
Internet Beacon
See more SEO tips for small businesses.
Tags: browser, Chrome, filtering feature, Google, internet, results, search, site blocking, website
