Google has introduced personalization to the search results of account holders. When logged into their accounts, Google users will see search listings that have favoured listings injected into results for search queries they commonly run.
Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land posted an excellent overview of personalized Google results on Friday evening, “Google Ramps Up Personalized Search“. It is essential reading for everyone in the search marketing industry.
I have just finished writing a long feature article for SiteProNews.com on Google Personalizaton and SEO that should be published in the coming days. I don’t have the finger-power to write many more sentences on the subject tonight but wanted to push out a few clips:
For the SEO industry, the implications of personalization are both stark and subtle. While the trend towards regionalization has limited clear standards for judging overall Google rankings for the past few years, the advent of personalized results makes the standard website ranking report somewhat useless.
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Optimization techniques for personalized search results will include expertise in site usability, visitor retention, traffic funneling, bookmarking and social tagging, all of which entered the unwritten book of SEO best practices over the past few years. It will also involve a stronger dedication to content creation, document upkeep and overall resourcefulness.
There’s a lot more in the article, including tips for optimizing for personalized but we’ll have to wait ’till it’s published.
Have a question and need quick answers? 
Interested to see how personalisation will affect SEO.
Comment by infonote — Tuesday, February 6, 2007 @ 9:31 am
Interesting but I have found that very few people are willing to do the work to setup the custom search results if this is tied in with the coop program.
Comment by John — Tuesday, February 13, 2007 @ 10:54 am