Google SearchWiki

Yesterday when I tried to Google my comics website (as I often do), I encountered two new icons near every result in the Google search results page: Promote and Remove. Promote allows you to move a result to the top of your search page, so that next time you search the same keyword, that result would appear at the top of your page. Remove allows you to remove a search result from your search page, so that next time you search the same keyword you won't get that result.

Searching the web for more info on this new feature revealed to me that it's a new Beta service that Google launched recently, but only to a part of its users (selected randomly), and it may be available for a limited amount of time. The service is called SearchWiki, and its purpose is to optimize search results for each individual user.

Several things to note:

• Some of you may not have this feature. As mentioned, it's experimental and only available for (randomly) selected users.


• You must be logged into your Google account to have this feature activated.


• Quoting Google: "...The webpages you...promote...along with the user nickname...may be viewed by other Google searchers also in the experiment..." - so be advised, Big Brother is watching you.

Recommended reading:

• Google officialy addresses this new service at its support site.


• Google Operating System blog has a nice article on this.