Are Google listings customized?

1. 61

   The Party Fairyposted 16 years ago

   Here's a question for those of you who are in the know....
          The fairy grapevine whispers that Google uses some strange magic which makes it impossible to trust that the listings you see on your computer screen when you do a search are the same as the listings I see on mine when I search for the very same topic.
          The rumor is that Google customizes searches, individualizing them based on past searches and sites visited.
          Can this be true?
          Do any of you know?
          Because that would mean that getting a hub listed on the top of a Google page isn't necessarily such a wonderful thing as it first may seem to an excited newbie hubber.
           After all, I can write a hub titled something like, say, "Six Ways to Cut a Pear" and get all excited to see that my hub comes up in the second or third slot on the first Google page when I use "cut pear" as my search term -- but it won't mean a thing if you don't see the same listings when you search for "cut pear." Maybe the listings you see are somehow magically skewed toward sites that sell tools for cutting pears, based on your previous searches for tools, and mine are skewed toward sites that sell fresh fruit, based on my previous searches for fruits.
         Who among you has any knowledge about this sort of thing?

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   1. 0

      daflaposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      The answer is yes and no.  If you're searching for "cut pear", you will get articles and sites about cut pears, but if you are looking for "Air conditioner repair" or "fruit tree nurseries", you'll get more localized results.  On generalized searches, such as "cut pear", you'll get a listing of the highest ranked sites for that search.

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2. 61

   The Party Fairyposted 16 years ago

   Thank you, kind dafla!  Google workings, HubPages strategy and the like is a bit much for this pixie-sized brain to assimilate, so I am especially grateful for the kindness of other, wiser and more experienced Hubbers. 

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