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How will Google Personalized Search affect affiliate marketing?

December 8, 2009 by John Dilbeck
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Attracting Visitors 

How much do you know about Google’s personalized search feature?

For some time now, if you were signed in to Google (through any of the accounts you may have there), your search results were subject to being personalized.

I first realized how important this was when I was doing some search engine optimization and promotion for a client. I told my daughter that we were already getting page one placement for that client and she said she didn’t see it.

That’s when I remembered that I was logged in to Google. When I logged out, and did the search again, the results were different. My client was not on page one and these new results were consistent with what my daughter saw when she did the same search.

So, after that, when I was testing search results, I had to remember to log out of Google.

Last Friday, however, Google rolled out personalized search results for everyone and you’ve been opted-in by them automatically, whether you are aware of it or not.

Here’s their announcement…

Personalized Search for everyone

Now, personally, I think this has potential for real differences in how people see search results and I think it’s going to get more different over time.

How good or bad it is would depend upon how you’re using the search engines – Google, specifically.

As a marketer, I’m not much in favor of it and won’t be until I see how it affects traffic flow in the future. I’ve worked hard for many years to rank well for some search terms and this has the potential to destroy all that effort. I don’t know that it will, but it might, so I’m going to try to watch and see what happens.

As a user, it may have its benefits, but, again, only time will tell. I am not happy that Google opted me into this with no say on my part, however. I want a way to turn it on and off, and at this time, I don’t know if that’s possible. I’m still learning about it.

Danny Sullivan wrote an excellent post on the topic…

Google’s Personalized Results: The “New Normal” That Deserves Extraordinary Attention

Danny knows a lot more about all this than I do and I’ll be watching to see what else he has to say on this topic.

So, what do you think?

Act on your dream!

JD

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17 Comments on How will Google Personalized Search affect affiliate marketing?

  1. Pastiche (Lee Hansen) on Tue, 8th Dec 2009 11:39 am

    2. From a marketer’s perspective normalized search results present a problem – your experience is a fine example. From the end user experience, however, it makes sense to use smart delivery methods to weed out/through the vast bulk of possible returns. It will be interesting to see how Bing and Yahoo compare vis a vis market share and results overall.
    Pastiche (Lee Hansen)´s last blog ..Squidoo Stats, 7 December 2009 My ComLuv Profile

  2. Mitch on Tue, 8th Dec 2009 3:43 pm

    3. I don’t like it one bit. In essence, they’re dropping cookies onto your computer to track what you’re doing, under the guise of it being good for us. I’m of a mind to eliminate all tracking cookies, but that penalizes me for websites I go to all the time and don’t want to have to remember the passwords for. Irked indeed!
    Mitch´s last blog ..Is Instant Messaging Dying Out? My ComLuv Profile

  3. Sheryl Loch on Tue, 8th Dec 2009 5:46 pm

    4. Hi John,
    I am not thrilled with it. I do think it has been more personalized than many have thought for a long time.

    It causes a problem with searchers finding new sites. If they normally go to certain sites for a type of info will they get stuck always seeing those same ones or will they get results for sites they may have never been to?

    It makes it really hard to see where you sit in the SERP’s if checking your incoming keyword phrases from analytics.

    Not sure how we will know who our competition is. We know we get differnt results depending on where you live but, now it will depend on where you “normally” go.

    Our B2evo blogs show the SERP position of the the incoming search from the user so, that gives me an idea of where they found me on their search page results.

    G did announce yesterday that they were rolling out Real time results so, that could possibly help out us that have not always been found by searchers. The real time will be showing updates from a few social sites. That just means we may have to post with more intent than before.

    Seems about the time we think we have it a little figured out…they change it on us.
    Sheryl Loch´s last blog ..How we do Team Work as a Family My ComLuv Profile

  4. John Dilbeck on Wed, 9th Dec 2009 2:46 am

    5. Good morning, Lee.

    I have mixed feelings about this.

    As a Google end user, I want to get the best results when I search for something, but just because I’ve been to a particular site a lot doesn’t necessarily mean that it would be better for what I’m looking for at the time.

    As a marketer, of course, I want to rank highly for everyone! ;)

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  5. John Dilbeck on Wed, 9th Dec 2009 2:50 am

    6. Good morning, Mitch.

    I understand what you’re saying.

    I’m still upset that Google is using cookies from doubleclick.net, but I’ve decided there’s not much I can do that wouldn’t penalize me in the long-run.

    The thing that bothers me most, however, is that they violated one of the basic tenets of permission marketing – getting permission! I would not opt into this as a general rule.

    If I had the option to turn it on and off when I wanted, I might feel a bit better, but not much.

    I’m not mad about it, but I am annoyed.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  6. John Dilbeck on Wed, 9th Dec 2009 2:54 am

    7. Good morning, Sheryl,

    You’re exactly right with your last sentence. When we think we have it figured out, everything changes. I guess that’s just the nature of the beast, but it is annoying.

    I’m not sure what the real-time search results will bring us. To me, that just seems made for spammers and automated systems spewing junk and links related to the rising topics.

    I hope I’m wrong about that, but I’m expecting to see people marketing such software in the very near future.

    Sigh.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  7. Brian D. Hawkins on Thu, 10th Dec 2009 9:16 am

    8. Hi John, I realized it when I searched my primary target keywords ‘ad tracker’. I was finally at the number one position. That is until I sign out of Google ):
    Brian D. Hawkins´s last blog ..Extreme Advertising By Reebok – Better Legs And A Better Butt With Every Step My ComLuv Profile

  8. John Dilbeck on Thu, 10th Dec 2009 2:18 pm

    9. Good afternoon, Brian,

    I know what you mean. It’s a bad feeling to find that you’ve met your goal and then discover that it’s really Google manipulating the results you see.

    I’m still trying to decide what I think of this and how it may shake out in the long run.

    I still think that posting good quality content that serves the needs of both the reader and the search engines is the way to go and I don’t think the sky is falling, but I do think there will be some repercussions that will affect those of us who depend upon organic free traffic as a result of placing highly in the search engines.

    Still waiting and watching.

    Brian, it’s always good to hear from you.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  9. sarah on Mon, 14th Dec 2009 3:24 pm

    10. I agree with Mitch. Why do you have to mess up a good thing??? Instead of creating a new search engine, why not improve the one we all are so use to using? I am a Dallas Realtor
    and am on the internet all day, everyday and don’t have the time, to allow or don’t allow popups and ok remember my password, ughhhh!
    sarah ´s last blog ..The Truth About Texas My ComLuv Profile

  10. John Dilbeck on Sat, 19th Dec 2009 4:56 pm

    11. Good afternoon, Sarah.

    Welcome to our discussions.

    I know what you mean. If I’m awake, there’s a good chance that I’m online, too.

    I don’t know how personalized search results will affect all of us, but I know it’s going to bring a real change, in one way or another.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  11. rajat on Mon, 28th Dec 2009 8:13 am

    12. Hi

    i think you have taken this new feature in a wrong way , it has its plus points too , for example from a marketer point of view you will get much better results from paid advertising as in google adwords you will be able to focus to individual who are really looking for your products hence each click through will deliver more results because then the user demographics can be leveraged.

  12. John Dilbeck on Mon, 28th Dec 2009 9:57 am

    13. Good morning, Rajat.

    Are we taking this wrong? I don’t think so.

    However, it looks like you have a different perspective and I respect that.

    I don’t advertise through Adwords, so I can’t speak to your point. You very well may be right.

    From my perspective, however, the personalized search results adds more confusion and potential difficulty in ranking well in the search results.

    Since I depend almost entirely on free traffic from the search engines, that still concerns me.

    Do you do a lot of Adwords advertising? Is it working for you?

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  13. rajat on Tue, 29th Dec 2009 1:37 pm

    14. hi JD

    i suggest you should try paid advertising, if your campaigns are very specific you will definitely get results , and make sure you turn off content ads , keyword specific , region specific, time specific thats very imp , then you can get lot better result then natural seo.

    But i do understand the point you were trying to make and that the results do vary with personalized search results and does add to confusion and uncertainty and makes our job all the more difficult.

  14. Partnersuche on Mon, 4th Jan 2010 11:07 am

    15. You’re right rajat, Google AdWords seems to be the most effective tool right now.

  15. John Dilbeck on Thu, 7th Jan 2010 3:26 pm

    16. Good afternoon, Rajat.

    You’re probably right about AdWords being an effective method, if you have the right campaigns and things for sale.

    I tried AdWords for awhile and was never successful with it. It seems that some of us have a knack for one thing and others for something else.

    I’m happy to hear that you’re doing well with paid advertising and I may give it another try later this year after I’ve finished making some changes to what I’m doing.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  16. Robert Ambartsumov on Mon, 15th Feb 2010 4:11 pm

    17. Personalized search for web marketers is bad because it always mixes you and you need to clear your browser cookies to reset SERP, but for people who use google daily it might be more useful then you think.

  17. Rick on Sat, 3rd Apr 2010 6:37 pm

    18. I still don’t think it’s the method that will change our usage and conception of search engines.
    Out of the many people that use google perhaps only a small percentage is actually clicking the recommendation buttons, I think the real change should come from twitter and facebook, where socialism is at, google isn’t a place to be social and recommend stuff, while twitter is. And i have read some post earlier that explains the power of twitter and how people can actually re-tweet if they liked something, creating a link juice to powerful content.

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