Google Launches Personalized Search in Beta

Google's launched a new personalized search service that adjusts your search results depending on what you've searched for before. Of course as a new Google product it's in beta; you can try it at https://www.google.com/psearch/login?prev=/psearch . You'll need a Google account.

Once you've logged in, you'll go into the Your History page if you've already signed up for Google's search history feature.

I ran a search for "spina bifida". After I ran the search I went down the search result and clicked on every summary that contained the word hydrocephalus. I then ran a search for hydrocephalus. I didn't see difference between that search and a non-personalized search run on a different browser. I then did a search for neurology. Same thing. I went out a little further and tried a search for "folic acid". Same thing.

I then did some searching with Jaguars and Cars, and came up with the same thing. I suspect my problem is I'm not doing enough in-depth searching and surfing, and not giving Google's Personalized Search enough to work with. As the announcement about the service says, "As the user searches and builds up more of a search history they will notice that Google gets better and better at delivering the information they're looking for. Personalized Search orders results based on what it learns from the user's prior search history." Ask me about it again in a week when I've done a little bit more with it.

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