So it has now been around 2 months since Google announced that personalised search would be used for users who are not logged into an account. This has given everyone time to build up some history in their searching to determine what the effects of it are and whether it is actually the death knell for search engine optimisation as many people still seem to be claiming.
Having spent the last 2 months conducting research on the effect of personalised search we have seen only very minor fluctuations across a host of tested search terms. On the whole there has been very little movement in the top 10 rankings for any search terms and next to no movement in the top 3 positions. These top 3 positions for the majority of searches are anchored in these positions regardless of how many related searches the user makes and their click through rate on any of the other ranking results and the ultimate goal for any project would be to achieve these positions.
Ultimately personalised search has not changed the way in which Google chooses to rank sites and as a result the process of search engine optimization has not been affected. Google will continue to assess the authority of sites based on quality of content on the site and the volume and quality of links pointing to the site so for any business that is not ranking on the first page of Google then following the processes of good practices is still the best route forward.
What personalised search does raise though is the fact that Google will be and have been for a long time now using click through rates as a factor for ranking results. Given the recent admission by Google that they do not use the description Meta tag as a bearing on ranking results then it is my belief that this should now be used in a similar way to ad text for pay per click ads. The description tag is still shown for the majority of sites for their listing and therefore this should now be utilised to entice users to click on your site above all the others around you. This combined with your site being the best resource for the end user on a particular search term should be what every site is striving towards as it is this that will ultimately prevail in your quest for search engine domination.
How Will Personalised Search Affect ?
