WebProNews

SES Round-up

Jolina and Mike had a great time at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago. Not only is it the windy city, but a festive, cold and snowy one too by the sounds of it.

Now THAT is Personalization

For anyone who's read my blog posts for a while or who saw me speak in San Jose earlier this year you'll know that I'm particularly interested in personalization and specifically, Google's patents on the subject. It's because of this that the launch of 23andme yesterday was particularly interesting though I have to say, I haven't seen anything in any of the patents on how this ties together.

Google Video: Privacy & Personalized Search

Early last month the Google Blog released a video regarding privacy. On Monday they released a second video this time specifically discussing privacy as it pertains to personalized search. Once again support engineer Maile Ohye offers some clear explanations

SES - TopRank Day 1 Wrap Up

If you see these smiling faces at SES, be sure to say hello!

SES - Session: Personalization, User Data & Search

The personalization of search results is not the only way to target someone, you can also personalize your website to ensure your visitors feel engaged as soon as they arrive.

SES - Personalization, User Search & Data Session

This year, Google made its personalized search service much more the default for many users. Other search engines have user data that could be used to reshape search results. This session looks at existing and possible moves in the space.

Where is the Google Search Result?

I had a client ask me the other day where his traffic was coming from, since he couldn’t find his listing in the top few pages of search results for a keyword that was showing up in his analytics reports.

SMX: Personalized Search - Fear or Not?

Despite the session’s title, the Q&A quickly devolved into less of a discussion of “Fear or Not” and more into “Why did you do this to us, Google?!” (Followed closely by the response, “You’re not normal. Er, a regular user.”)

Yahoo To Turn Away From Search?

When a little kid loses, what does he do?  He cries, screams, and - hopefully those checkers won’t scratch the wall - he hates the game.  Now, I’m not accusing Yahoo of crying or screaming, but the company may not love search as much as it used to - one exec, Tapan Bhat, said, “Search is no longer the dominant paradigm.” "Yahoo To Turn Away From Search?"

Personalization Gets Deeper

Many of you know that I spent the last few years at ibm.com, focusing in large measure on personalization. Eight years ago, when we first started looking at personalization, Amazon was the only Web site doing it successfully, but times have really changed. I realized how much has changed last week while travelling in Canada.