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Google Offers Personalized Search

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the who-is-this-google? dept.

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."

11 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. No Safari by gtrubetskoy · · Score: 4, Informative
    Sorry, Google Personalized does not currently support Safari.

    oh well...

    1. Re:No Safari by Drakonian · · Score: 5, Informative

      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?

      --
      Random is the New Order.
    2. Re:No Safari by nicky_d · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:No Safari by .com+b4+.storm · · Score: 4, Informative

      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...

      --
      "Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
      -- Ryan Stiles
  2. Personalized Google News by glinden · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:This looks cool, however.... by keep_it_simple_stupi · · Score: 4, Informative

    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!

  4. Re:This looks cool, however.... by cptgrudge · · Score: 4, Informative
    (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.

    --
    Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
  5. Re:This looks cool, however.... by br0ck · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:Can't personalize to the degree I want! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Enjoy your free pr0n via Google.

  7. Re:This looks cool, however.... by xNoLaNx · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  8. Wildcard searching by startup.cmd · · Score: 4, Informative
    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"