Personalised search, privacy and user personas
One of the main issues around personalised search is privacy. Most people feel a little bit uncomfortable with the idea of a search engine attempting to deliver results based tracking us as individuals. Like when someone constantly finishes your sentence, because they think they know you so well (annoying? I know! I do it all the time).
Bill Slawski aka SEO By the SEA, may have uncovered a couple of Google patents that may provide an ingenious workaround.
The proposed method is to create group profiles based on individual search history combined with group behaviour. Creating user types or personas like traditional demographic categorisation can provide personalised results without getting personal.
Another interesting concept is to allow your profile to be stored on your computer, which would make people more comfortable with the whole idea.
May be one day it may be possible to have a profile standard which would allow a searcher to own their data and plug it into the search engine index of their choice.
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Hmmm, seems cool.
Joe joestain13@yahoo.com