Personalized Search: All's Well... or Orwell?

You go to Google and enter your search term. Big Brother, the totalitarian character from George Orwell's novel 1984, watches with detached interest. You see, to Big Brother, you are only a number—but he'd like to know as much about you as he can.

Knowing you allows Big Brother to do many things—both good and evil.

Alright, enough of the "Big Brother" comparison—it's been done many times before (and done many times better). However, there is an important central point to be made about personalized search.

Google is now (and has been for some time) collecting data on individual users, and they are assuming that users will trust them with this data to "Do No Evil," as their famous slogan goes. Only time will tell whether the trust is well-placed or people are willing to trust search engines with this type of data at all.

The basic principle behind personalized search is simple. When you go to Google and type in a search query, Google stores the data. As you return to the engine, a profile of your search habits is built up over time. With this information, Google can understand more about your interests and serve up more relevant search results.

For instance, let's say that in your search queries you have shown an interest in the topic of sport fishing, while in his search queries your neighbor has shown an interest in musical instruments. Over time, as these preferences are made clear to the engine, your personalized search results for the term "bass" will largely be composed of results that cover the fish, while your neighbor's results for "bass" will be composed of results that primarily cover musical instruments.

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Scott Buresh is founder and CEO of Medium Blue, an award-winning search engine optimization company.