Google products do come out of beta from time to time. In this case, one came out of beta in a big way: Google Personalized Search. Now, whenever you’re signed into any of your Google accounts when you do a Google search, your results will be personalized, getting more and more tailored as you build up your search history.

       The reactions to this in the SEO community have been all over the place: gloom and doom, panic, determination, near-paranoia, and even ennui. In this article, I’ll try to point out the reasons for this kind of response, and take a look at whether it’s justified. But first, let me try to explain what exactly is happening.

       I signed up to start using Google’s search history and personalized search early last year so I could do a review of the service. Since then I’ve acquired a Gmail account and used a number of other Google services for review purposes. I haven’t paid any attention as to whether I’ve been signed in to my account when I perform searches, but some of the computers I use seem to sign me in automatically (I rarely bother signing out). I went over my search history recently, and was quite surprised to see how much information had accumulated there, reflecting work, hobbies, and sudden casual curiosity.

       It’s this search history that Google is going to use to influence the results you see when you do a search and you’re signed in. They’re also supposedly going to use information from Google Bookmarks and personalized Google home pages. To quote Google’s explanation of personalized search: “Personalized Search orders your search results based on your past searches, as well as the search results and news headlines you’ve clicked on. You can view all these items in your Search History and remove any items you like. Early on, you may not notice a huge impact on your search results, but as you build up your search history, your personalized results will continue to improve.”

       A lot of people are not thrilled about the idea that users are signed in to personalized search by default whenever they’re signed in to a Google service. This could mean a huge change in the way SEO is done – or not, depending on whom you ask. I’ll get back to that point in a moment, though I’d like to add that personalized search has implications far beyond SEO (another point I’ll return to later on).

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