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Search Engine Optimization Tools; Un-personalize Google Searches June 23, 2011 Leave a Comment (Edit) Search engine optimization tools are very important to seo campaigning. Search engines are interested in relevant content that will help people find what they are looking for, now all we have to do is make sure that we share it with the right readers.

There are personalized searches in Google, which means nearly every result returned within a browser is adjusted in some way or other. It is rare that two different people in the whole world have ever seen the exact same set of search results within a same given time frame. Personalization has created winners and losers within the world of the Internet.

l Netflix gives you a recommendation on what movies it predicts you will like. They claim 85% accuracy within half a star.

l Amazon does a great job of suggesting books for me based on what others have purchased.

l Facebook updates our News Feeds only with friends they think we are willing to interact with.

The ever-present nature of Google creates a real risk of limiting our overall worldview. Every new search result stats, looks like the search before. Our ideas become isolated and homogenized. As a search marketer, this is particularly vexing when you have to explain your situation to those clients who do not realize that Google personalizes their results.

Sometimes personalization and localization works well, such as when you are looking for a place to eat in Los Angeles. However there are times when you want results that unbiased results not based on search history, location and what your social circle has shared. I cannot imagine Larry Page (founder of Google) surfing the web all day with personalized search on. Otherwise, he would never understand how his own search engine performs.

So now, what are the real search engine optimization tools used to “turn it off”. To un-personalize results, Google’s outdated instructions require you to perform an inane combination of tasks including: logging out of your account, deleting your search history and/or clearing your cookies. Using this method, you can’t use other services like Gmail or Calendar without logging back in first. Not to mention you cannot turn off your localized results because Google auto detects your location. Here is the search engine optimization tools that turns off the personalization: Just type &pws=0 at the end of your search query.

This does have the disadvantage of being time consuming and, for beginners, difficult to remember. In truth you still cannot remove localization from Google’s search results. But you can largely broaden your local area. Google allows you to set your search area as large as a country. By default, you can set yours to United States to remove any local bias that creeps into a result. The results help you see the broader picture. Even localizing to another country using the TLD, then re-localizing to your own country using GL=parameter.

For Example: www.google.co.nz/search?q=sea&pws=0&gl=us That shows me the most search agnostic version in rankings on a US-based searcher might get. These are great search engine optimization tools and if you wanted to see New Zealand, you could change the domain name to .com or .ca or some such and change the &gl=nz.

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