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COMMENTARY | Noah Brier

SearchWiki (aka Google Changes its Search Listings)

November 21, 2008 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 3 COMMENTS

It's not every day that you see a massive change to the way Google results look, but if you've got a Google account you've no doubt noticed it. Basically you search for something when you're signed in and next to every result is an up arrow, down arrow and little x with a speech bubble after the result. Basically Google is asking for your feedback, though apparently your pumping things up and down only effect your own results (for now). The comments, however, will be public to all and you'll be identified with your username (which Google reminds you of when you first use it).

This is all kind of crazy, mostly because I seemed to have missed hearing about it all together. Apparently it only came online today. Clearly search engines are inherently social (rankings like PageRank rely on people linking to one another to work), but this is an interesting and opaquely social development. I'll be fascinated to see how they keep this from devolving into a giant spam-filled game of FIRST!. (BTW, looks like Google just posted something.)

Tags: google, search

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COMMENTS

1David Damore

This has not appeared yet for my Google search results. They are probably rolling it out in batches as they did with themes in Gmail.

Comments [?]Not sure what that means
Your Google ID will be associated with moving results up and down, and this will be public?

Tech Crunch reported on this feature in July.

"Google Bucket Testing New Digg-Like Search Interface"
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/14/google-bucket-testing-new-digg-like-search-interface/

November 21, 2008

2Bud Caddell

I'm sitting here with baited breath hitting refresh hoping I get to see the SearchWiki arrows applied to my account...

They've been testing and testing it out and then just ran with it today, methinks someone wasn't going to let the Gmail team take the cake with their themes.

You have to wonder about the infrastructure built to crunch the numbers of everyone moving things up and down. And while it may not actually affect the searches of others, you'd hope the Google team has some interesting ways to review and validate the data firehose they've just created.

November 21, 2008

3Lenin Nair

Yes, it is a great search feature, though not available to most people. Out there. I had used it in the time of its beta release. Wrote a review here you may find it interesting: Google searchWiki review

Lenin Nair

November 21, 2008