Google is back with a social search experiment. This time they call it SearchWiki. A collective feature “ala” Digg to promote search results, add public comments to them, remove them, and suggest what you would like to see the next time you perform your search. The new feature lets you see others’ comments for your particular SearchWiki as well as your previous notes.
It’s not the first time Google tries this kind of approach for sorting search results. They had previous experiments where you were able to vote and suggest better results. While SearchWiki has been translated in different languages and has a polished look, Google states that it is still an experimental feature that is served only to a random selection of participants and that it may only be available for a few weeks.
“Digg” your search results
In regards of every search result, 2 new boxes let you promote the result to the top of your SearchWiki or remove the website which will then appear at the bottom of the page. If you have promoted more than one page you can then organize them in your preferred order.
Any promoted page will stay at the top each time you redo this search or any other search that brings one of your promoted pages in the top results. It is not clear how Google will user this collective rating in their algorithm or if they will use it at all.
Commented websites
Another feature that appears near search results is the public commenting of a search result or moreover of a url. Those comments are made public meaning that Google has a special page that brings you all the commented pages for a particular search with their ratings.
Google will include in your search results comments that you might have added previously. It is not clear if they will bring others’ comments in your result list. That would be a nice feature to see comments from a trusted list of friends who might have an opinion on the Web page.
Suggest better results
At the very bottom of your SearchWiki page there is a link to add a result that you would like to see the next time you do your search.
The new result will then appear at the top of the results page.
Your comments
October 29, 2008 by Benjamin D.C. #856
Very interesting, indeed, while I totally agree with the usability problem…
October 29, 2008 by Roy Morejon #857
this looks promising
October 29, 2008 by TekGems #859
Google does its best to guess context, but I think this is where user contribution comes into play. If someone searches for Apple and votes up Apple.com to the top, then the context is skewed towards Apple.com… But as you gather votes, the top links should represent the voting pattern or at least have Google consider these votes as part of the algorithm. I think votes should only be allowed from Google enabled users so voting is from actual individuals and have some sort of reputation score. Someone who only votes on spammy sites will have a lower reputation than someone who consistently votes on authority sites.
October 31, 2008 by Chris Lang #860
Many already theorize that Google personalized results have already changed what we see heavily.
If anything I believe that SEO is already dead and we just don’t know it yet.
Google already knows what we buy, who our social network friends are, what we blog and comment about and what sites we use and socialize in.
With that much information at Google’s disposal they are already altering search results to fit our needs.
Why would it matter if the hand so a few outsiders added their input?
All is this in an attempt to gather more data on US, not an attempt to let others change the face of Google results.
What Google is after is what we have to say, not what others have to say. This is demographic data gathering on us.
They just don’t call on the phone to ask the questions. Besides, no one would answer, they would be better off sending a text.
October 31, 2008 by Google Wiki - Digg Interface or Data Miner? (Pingback) #861
[...] seems Google is at it again with what we called a digg like Google interface 4 months [...]
October 31, 2008 by Doron #862
It looks like they will test human powered search
November 2, 2008 by Seoverload #865
I am sure people will manipulate this.
November 2, 2008 by Weekly SEO and Search Buzz (2 Oct 08) (Pingback) #868
[...] Google’s Digg-Like Social Search = SearchWiki. [...]
November 3, 2008 by Future of SEO | SEO Technologies | SEO Blog | Search and Social (Pingback) #869
[...] Social input and voting will be used by search engines to allow the Internet community to have human editorial voice in the quality of content. Google has already experimented with this with a Digg-like voting system in search result pages. [...]
November 3, 2008 by Thomas Moreau #871
This might influence search results in a near future, but as other factors still would do, and SEO guys know that content is king. So, if you go on providing people with valuable content, no reason to say SEO is dead. And note this: Google won’t change deeply its algorithms, because there are so many (ugly) websites that you would probably remove from your SearchWiki results, which are relying on Adsense content to generate revenues. Google wouldn’t kill itself!
November 21, 2008 by Creator #1035
SEO isn’t dead. It’s a necessary condition for good ranking. But it’s not sufficient anymore. You need to be popular, through inbound links translated into PR. And, probably in the feature, a website will rely on SearchWiki.
In fact, SearchWiki might be a more direct way of saying “this website is useful, fun, etc.” than linking.
November 22, 2008 by heather #1054
does anyone think that this new search feature from google will affect the way pages are ranked within google? I wonder if this will shift google rankings for large/profitable keywords alot? i found a rundown of how the google searchwiki works at http://www.thesearchwiki.com for anyone who hasnt seen what the new google search results look like with searchwiki.
November 22, 2008 by Thomas Moreau #1057
@heather Note that this website you just talk about is to me the perfect example of a website I would remove from my results if I was to see it in my Searchwiki results. No relevant content, just Adsense, an opportunist domain name, and some code to exchange links.