Google SearchWiki was launched only last year to all users signed in on a Google account. The programme allows users to re-rank organic search results and comment on them. Now, adding SearchWiki to AdWords will mean that users have the ability to delete or reposition an ad as per their choice and requirements.

This is a good feature, as far as individual users are concerned. What is worrying to advertisers, however, is the fact that if several users delete or lower the ranking of a particular ad, it may eventually affect the Quality Score of the ad.

It is a fact that Google already knows a lot about user preferences towards various ads based on the click through rates of any given ad. This data allows Google to reward sites with higher click through rates and hence higher quality scores by lowering their costs per click.

SearchWiki on AdWords does the reverse in some ways. It will allow Google to identify which of the ads that weren’t clicked were especially irrelevant or offensive to the user.

Such a system could leave Google SERPs open to manipulation akin to what happened in the early days of PPC advertising - unscrupulous companies hired low-pay workers in third-world countries to click on competitor ads, making them bleed through their budget.Such companies could now hire rogue teams to vote down competitor ads repeatedly.
On the other hand, genuine users who do not like a particular ad might just not bother to waste their time deleting or re-ranking it. They might just ignore it.

A Google spokesperson is supposed to have replied to Peter Young, an advertiser from the UK, saying, “This is a small experiment to show the SearchWiki “X” next to AdWords ads on Google.com search results pages … The experiment triggers for a small number of SearchWiki users. SearchWiki is launched to most (but not all) signed-in US English users … Ads that users remove will no longer trigger for that user on that query … At this time the experiment does not affect Quality Scores, CPCs, ranking, or anything else … It it too soon to say how we will use the data in the future … Any time an ad is shown to a user, an impression is counted … [advertisers cannot opt out of this experiment] … [advertisers cannot see reports on ad removal].”

Google’s response to Search Engine Land was more typical of the tight-lipped search giant: “As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, we are currently running an experiment in which users can customize the ads that appear in the Sponsored Links section of the search results page by deleting ad results. This experimental feature is only visible to a small number of users and we have no news to announce at this time regarding developments in our AdWords product offering.”

It goes without saying that since AdWords is a major source of income for Google, they will definitely think long and hard before making any move that their advertisers might not like.

Google has launched a feature called SearchWiki that is available to all users who have signed in with a Google Account and searched on the regular Google search service.

Once signed in, users automatically have the option to rearrange the search results provided by Google to suit their needs. To do this they can make use of ‘promote’, ‘remove’ and ‘comment’ buttons provided by Google alongside each result.

Changes thus made will be stored in the user’s account and will be displayed every time the user repeats the same search. Users can also alter the changes again whenever they feel the need to do so.

Single user changes will not be reflected in any other user’s search results. However, a user can see all the changes made by other users to a given search result by clicking on a link saying, “See all notes for this SearchWiki”, which is provided below each search page.

It is very likely, though, in time, that Google will start using the collective wisdom of the masses to eliminate irrelevant results and promote results that are consistently voted up by users.

This is the first time Google will allow its users to alter the search results, but Microsoft has already introduced a similar service on an experimental basis called U Rank, while Mahalo also provides results which have been created by users.

In the near future, more customers will start seeing a message on the upper right hand corner of the search results page specifying that the search results have been customised for a particular city or locality. There will also be a link saying ‘More details’, which the user can click on to find out more.

Search results are personalised based on the following criteria:

• Location – based on the IP address of the computer being used, Google automatically knows the approximate location of the user. This information is used to provide search results that are most relevant to that location.
• Recent Searches – Whenever possible, Google will take into consideration the previous queries entered by the user, in order to better understand the context of the current search. This information will help customise results irrespective of whether the user has signed in or not. Google will also retain the last query entered on the browser for some time, in order to customise future results. However, if the user closes the browser, then, that information will be deleted instantly.
• Web History – If a user has signed in, and has Web History enabled, then Google will customise search results based on past records of what the user has searched. If a user does not wish to have a particular search customised, he/she can temporarily sign out from the Google Account.

The addition of this latest feature on Google Search will not alter the web results in any way. It will only allow users to better understand how their search data is used to personalise results.