Danny Gorog21 November 2008, 12:52 PM
Google is letting Australians vote on search results with a new feature being introduced called SearchWiki.
SearchWiki lets users who are logged in with their Google accounts re-rank, delete, add or comment on web search results. According to Google, this feature is designed to 'give Australians greater control over the results they see' when they search, however, SearchWiki is rolling out globally today.
The changes you make are only visible to you, and will reappear every time you do the same search. Google has said that there will also be a public page where community results can be viewed, but hasn't released the details of this yet. There's no word yet on whether these modified search results will be available on your mobile device, but I expect over time, they will be.
Changing your search results are pretty easy. If you're logged in to Google.com.au you should see arrows appear next to the title of the link. Pressing the up arrow increases the ranking of the page, pressing the down arrow lowers the search result. Clicking on the comments button at the bottom of the listing lets you add a public comment to the listing. You can all see comments that other users have left for the web page.
Google is also offering users the ability to add their own search results to a search. At the bottom of any results page, you can now click 'Add a result' and enter a URL. This page will then appear at the top of your results page.
Adding the ability to customise your search is a smart business move by Google, and I fully expect that once they populate their index with user preferences, this metric may be added to their indexing algorithm to improve the quality of search results. While 'human powered' search engines like Mahlo do already exist, having the depth and user base of Google will quickly mean that search results improve across the board; something that is good for users and advertisers alike.