iGoogle get's social

Seems that the fine folks at Google are stepping a little closer to the world of social media/networking after opening up a sandbox for iGoogle developers (as reported today on GoogleSystem and Search Engine Land). For those not yet familiar with iGoogle, it is a personalized Home page for Google that one gets when creating an account on many of their services. Looks like this (also multiple tabs);

The iGoogle service was by far the fastest growing service last year and this should continue that growth pattern over 2008 and beyond. This addition of a social element ensures that.

Where's the beef?

So, what does social goodiness have to do with SEO you ask? Simple, it will also mean a greater number of Google users, if they know it or not, will be logged into Google's personalized search. That in turn means that those of us in the search engine optimization game should be certain we're familiar with the differences in optimizing for it.

Personalized search, in essence, tries to get to know the end user based on their actions and interactions with the search results they are served. The search engine will look at a variety of signals such as;

1. Previous search queries (probabilistic query refinement); As an example; if the searcher has been recently searching the term ‘diabetes' and submits a query for ‘organic food' the system attempts to learn and presents additional results relating to organic foods that are helpful in fighting diabetes.

2. Previously presented results (may be omitted in subsequent queries); results that have been presented to the end user can be omitted in future results for a given period of time in exchange for other potentially viable results.

3. User query selection (and flagging of similar content); Past selected or preferred documents can be analyzed and similar documents or linking documents can be used to refine subsequent results. Furthermore, certain documents types can be seen as preferred, in what would be a combination of Universal Search concepts. Common websites that accessed can also be tagged as ‘preferred locations' for further weighting.

4. Selection and Bounce rates (and user activity on document/site); an editorial scoring can be devised from the amount of time a user spends on a page, the amount of scrolling activity, what has been printed, or even what has been saved or bookmarked. All can be used to further refine the ‘intent' and ‘satisfaction' with a given result that has been accessed.

5. Advertising Activity (performance metrics); the advertisements clicked on can also begin to add to a clearer understanding of the end users preferences and interests.