Google to Give “Preferred” Sites Prominence in Results

By  |  Monday, January 19, 2009 at 9:11 am

googlelogoThe Mountain View, Calif. search giant is rolling out an interesting new search feature in beta that allows users to set a list of preferred sites, from which the search algorithm will give prominence to those sites when results are returned.

Google explains the feature as such:

The preferred sites feature lets you set your Google Web Search preferences so that your search results match your unique tastes and needs. Fill in the sites you rely on the most, and results from your preferred sites will show up more often when they’re relevant to your search query.

What this sounds like is that Google is interested in making its results more relevant to the specific user. While it’s not clear yet whether this may be the start of Google attempting to use these lists to create a “trusted sites” directory to further tune its standard results as some have suggested, this is useful for those of us who may be frustrated with the amount of junk that is sometimes returned in Google results.

 
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6 Comments For This Post

  1. James Says:

    This is an interesting idea, but potentially creates even greater barriers to entry for new websites. Under this system how would a new site with limited users every get noticed, and therefore gain more users. Its chicken an egg scenario where a site will never get to the point of critical mass needed to influence its status in the rankings.

  2. Anne H Says:

    Sounds a little bit like the feature within Google Custom Search where the webmaster can pull in related sites and give them a different treatment.

  3. Jeremy Says:

    If this helps me get rid of all the Experts Exchange results I get when I try and troubleshoot a problem, then I’m all for it.

  4. Todd Jordan Says:

    It’s about time! I’d love to have better influence on search results.

  5. kızlık bozma Says:

    thak you for this

  6. Olivia Miller Says:

    I always read daily Busines News from across different online aggregators to keep myself up to date…’

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