Google has announced changes to its customised search function, affecting all users.
Previously users who were signed into their Google accounts and had their web history enabled would have had their search results customised, however now all users will find that their web history will affect the search results they get, with their favourite websites ranking higher in the search results from now on.
Google say the reason for this change is to provide a better service to its users and will also be able to precisely target ads further by building a profile based on the user’s web activity.
As search results now will start to vary from user to user, it poses the question whether this will make life harder for search engine optimisation specialists to get the results required.
The only change i can foresee with these changes is that the focus needs to put on the importance of converting impressions into clicks even more, in order to make your website one of the few visited websites in the search results (thus reinforcing the websites ranking). This can mainly be done by making sure your meta description is made as enticing to click on as possible.
The one challenge the new changes will pose will be the ability to accurately analyse a websites ranking as this data will change from user to user. The good news is that this functionality can be turned off via the opt-out option in your Google settings, so double check those rankings your SEO guy shows you – he might just be bending the rules!
