Google Offers Personalized Search

Ryan Barrett writes " Google is just overflowing with news today. Along with the recently announced UI redesign, they've launched a personalized search engine on Google Labs. It's still beta, but it looks pretty cool. (Note that it probably uses technology acquired when they bought Kaltix last year.) Other announcements include Web Alerts, a 'numrange' command, and image search built into Google News."

Comments

No Safari

[gtrubetskoy]

Sorry, Google Personalized does not currently support Safari.

oh well...

Re:No Safari

[Roogna]

Specifically, if you load Safari with the Debug menu enabled, and change the user-agent. Then search. You'll see why they don't support Safari yet. The javascript they've got going for the slider doesn't work quite right under Safari.

I'd bet that Safari support will come soon enough, either from Apple fixing whatever their handling of this paticular javascript is, or google simply getting it to work.

Re:No Safari

[Drakonian]

Where do you see this? I'm on Safari and the Personalized Search seems to load up fine for me, and searches seem to work. I didn't see Safari mentioned in the FAQ. What am I missing?

Re:No Safari

[nicky_d]

Well, it kinda supports Safari - if you enable Safari's debug menu and use the Debug menu to set your user agent to, say, MSIE 6, you get the slider. I can move in in crude and fairly arbitrary steps by clicking either side of it, but when I try to drag the slider, Safari just starts dragging the slider image - either the position marker or the background bar - just like it drags all other images.

So it's not really usable, but you can see how it works and get a taste of the results.

Re:No Safari

[.com b4 .storm]

At the top of the search results, it will say "Sorry, Google Personalized does not currently support Safari." (right next to the link that says 'Edit Profile'). If you change your User Agent, the page will reload and in that spot where the error message was will be a gauge you can click on for "Min" and "Max" personalization.

It says: Tip: Drag the slider (above) to the right to personalize results. Personalized results are marked by [little google balls here]

It sort of works in Safari, but it isn't draggable, you have to click - and it misjudges where you clicked relative to the gauge. It does seem to change the results though. This is what the "personalized" searching is really doing - if you are in Safari and you can't use the gauge, all you get is slightly different results from a regular Google search. There's not much "personalized" about it. Hope that clarifies what people are seeing here...

Personalized Google News

[glinden]

If you're curious what a personalized version of Google News might look like, take a look at Findory News. Findory learns from the news you read, searches thousands of sources, and finds articles that match your interests.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[keep_it_simple_stupi]

Agreed. More options are good - but this search seems significantly slower than the normal Google - I really don't think that Google can get /.'ed can it?

As a side note, selecting computers as your interests doesn't skew any results for the search term "bass" towards computers - I still get bass fishing. The FAQ is wrong man!

Re:This looks cool, however....

[cptgrudge]

(Also noteworty is Google Sets, however I can't find many uses for it yet).

Just as an example, I put redhat, debian, and mandrake into the Google Sets. It returned a bunch of alternate Linux distros. This could be useful for finding targeted information on a subject that one isn't familiar with except for a few starting elements. Not groundbreaking by any means, but it could have interesting uses, even if it's only reducing search time to find relevant information on a topic.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[br0ck]

From what I've heard the beta versions run on smaller single servers and don't harness the full power of Google's server farms. Note the disclaimer on labs.google.com that says: Please note: These technologies are still in the beginning stages of development, so they may disappear without warning or perform erratically. If something's not working on this page, please come back and try it again later.

Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want!

[Anonymous Coward]

Enjoy your free pr0n via Google.

Re:This looks cool, however....

[xNoLaNx]

You realize the slider bar at the top personalizes it in incriments deafulting to around 0, so at first it will show fish, then as you slide it to the right it will show bass related to computers. Note the special icon next to personalized items.

Wildcard searching

[startup.cmd]

Another useful Google feature is search globbing. It works just like command line wildcards. Use the * operator inside of quoted phrases when searching, and Google will substitute any word in its place. Here's an example:

"* processor"

Re:Guess I am Alone in this?

[KeeperS]

This probably has more to do with the terms you're giving Google than Google itself. The more generic of a term you give Google, the less it has to work with. If you give Google a really generic term, you're going to get broad results.

For example, say I'm looking for information on a printer. If I put in something like Printer I get a bunch of generic sites on printers. Putting in a specific printer, such as HP PSC 1350, helps, but I get a bunch of people trying to sell me that printer. Since I'm looking for reviews and not a place to buy it, a search for HP PSC 1350 review -buy gets me even better results. There might be better searches still, but you get the idea: the more specific your search terms, the better your search will be. Google is good, but it can't read your mind.

Re:3 Google stories in one day?

[Tokerat]

What for? There is pretty much already a Google section. ;-)