There seems to be a general fear of how personalized search is going to affect how SEO works. What strikes me the most is the common unwillingness of SEO’s today to advance their abilities to cope with change. I am very intrigued by the sheer volume of posts that appear daily about every little bump in Google. As an SEO community we need to move beyond this type of thinking and adapt to the future of how search will work.

One thing is for sure, Google is not going to risk the user experience of Google Web Search. It is also blatantly clear that Personalized Search will only be offered to signed in users. How else can they appropriately track search behavior to encompass a proper result? Keep in mind that cookies are slowly going away, many users are turning off accepting cookies for privacy.

I see the field of SEO becoming a strong part of user experience enhancement. If we can help to make sure sites are highly accessible and are attractive to users we will perform well in the SERP’s. It is sad that there are still folks out there creating garbage sites just to drive revenue and not fill a particular need. We are going to see a huge shakeup of these results sooner rather than later. Which will open the doors for sites who deserve to be exposed moving up and taking the place.

We spend a lot of time thinking about how to tweak links, apply for a link bait scheme and alter the way our sites appear to Google. But one of the new search features slowly coming down the pipe is personalization of search. Now a whole new set of factors play in the SEO space, thankfully a lot of our efforts in terms of Social Marketing are going to take effect. But the question remains, if you are a user of personalized search and look for something basic like a printer. You may no longer get the vast results that help in your selection process. For example if you are a fan of HP and Epson products and visit their site all the time, your searches will be augmented with Epson and HP, where normally they may not be relevant. This is a very interesting challenge for Google, however even a greater challenge for someone trying to break into a very competitive industry.

Search has usually leveled the playing field between the titans and the small mom and pop sites out there. Can it be that we are one step further along in stopping the Entrepreneur from growing? Now it will be so very important to have a strong brand!

Just a random thought for the day!