| Personalized
search is a hot topic especially since Yahoo! and Microsoft
have announced they are aggressively developing this service.
Most likely, people will be leery of personalized search if
they think that this is just be another way for companies
to market to them. Search engine research has shown that there
are typically two types of searchers: information seekers
and buyers.
Information
Seekers
If personalized
search is to work for the information seekers, then instead
of lots of targeted marketing, the personalized search experience
had better offer targeted information that the person
can use. A better information search experience without
having to bypass a slew of commercial sites would appeal
to the information seeker.
Buyers
What if you
already have the information you need or don't want any
information, but just want to make an online purchase? For
buyers, information-only sites are something to be by-passed
in the SERP's. If personalized search can deliver the products
and services the buyer wants, and not just what the marketers
want to push before them, then buyers may find some value
in personalized search.
Personal
Choice
Personalized
search must involve personal choice if it is to succeed.
The Big Brother and privacy issues need to be held to a
minimum. Personalized search needs to be an option that
can easily be turned on and off as desired. Personalized
search should not be equated with limited choices. The person
needs to feel that they are in control and not the search
engines. They also need to see real personal value in using
this service.
What if a person
is sometimes an information seeker and other times a buyer,
or in the matter of seconds they switch hats? How will personalized
search accommodate this person? Will the person have to
toggle back and forth between a couple of different user
profiles or click on and off a checkbox to switch between
these two different forms of search? These are questions
the SE's will have to address in personalization.
Google
Google has a
beta personalized search engine that is pretty interesting
to test. You're told to click on Health, then the General
Health checkbox and search for "stanford." When
searching for the word "bob" instead of "stanford"
at the Minimum Personalize setting the first three results
are "Bob the Builder," "Bob Marley"
and "Bob Dylan". The rest of this page has no
health related information on it as well. But, when the
slider is pulled to Maximum Personalize, "Dr. Bob"
has the first two positions followed the other results mentioned
above. Its obvious Google has a ways to go in developing
this.
Personal
Privacy
If personalized
search is to succeed, then personal privacy issues need
to be addressed and concerns held to a minimum. Will personalized
search involve searching your hard drive to see what your
interests are? Will your interests be stored in a cookie
on your computer? What happens when multiple users share
a computer - will someone else get hit with all sorts of
Preparation H advertisements because of the hemorrhoid treatment
searches you wanted to keep private? And will children be
affected by adult personalized searches?
These are all
questions that the SE's need to address so that people do
not feel that their privacy is being violated or put at
risk. The more control and choice the user has over personalized
search the more likely it has in succeeding for the search
engines.
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