Posted on 18. Dec, 2009
You have probably realized that over the past few weeks, Google rankings are getting jumbled and you might be seeing your site rank extremely high for keywords that you have never before traced your site rank. It’s no miracle and you have not being doing your homework and surely its not Google getting silly, but only a new beta being tested by the almighty Googlebot on IE 8. The new feature which is part of the Google customization features package will list your search results based on past search information linked to your browser using a cookie. Because many people might be searching on one computer, Google doesn’t show a list of previous search activity on this computer.
The argument here is clearly the effect that this will have on visits to new sites or sites that generally rank above average. This effect introduced by Google might be helping loyal users access recently visited sites but it surely does cut off the potential for new sites that are placing an effort to rank higher. Now the argument is that the rest of the sites will again rank in order with the difference that they will rank from result 2 onwards. We are expecting to see what Google’s decision will be in either making this a bit more sophisticated or either implementing it as a feature as is. The new policy might turn out to be extremely costly to new sites with ongoing efforts to rank or to optimize their content. From Google’s point of view it surely is a way to increase revenue from sponsored links but is this; the end of Google’s fair treating? Has Google become greedy?
The bottom line is that if this beta feature does proceed with getting implemented sites will have to fight for position 2 onwards. And for users that have been zapping around a number of related sites; juice for new sites might even be starting from position 5 onwards. Further updates will be announced. If you would like to switch off customization on your browser and show results naturally click here.
