Why We Need to Unpersonalize Search Results During SEO Efforts?

Google and other major search engines regularly modify and tweak their algorithms to produce better results and deter illegal SEO practices. It means that when people perform search for relevant keywords, they will get what they want. Google is known for its various innovative search features, inclduing personalized and instant searches. They could also check our habits and provide the most likely results that are relevant to our preferences. As an example, websites that we visit often tend to rank higher in our web browser. This is a good feature to have, but can be disabled when we want to get more standardized results during a SEO campaign. This is a mistake that some website owners do and their search results are affevted by the bias of their previous search habits. With non-personalized results, we should be able to get more neutral results and our SEO efforts will be more refined.

Website owners should know that search results are personalized by Google, by default. In this case, we should look for ways to unpersonalize our search results, so we will get a much more accurate result. We will know whether our website is ranked properly in global search ranking. This is an absolute requirement if we want to have an effective SEO effort. Disabling personalized search should be quite easy. The easiest way is to add the “&pws=0” syntax in the URL. First of all, we need to disable the instant search result. To do this, we should look for the “Instant in on” link, which is usually located near the primary search button.

When we search for specific keywords and add the “&pws=0” syntax, at the end of the automatically generated URL in the URL field, the search result will not be personalized. After we disable the personalized search, the result will be significantly different, because our personal preferences are removed. Geography plays a significant factor in our search results, so it is important to focus on global results. Geography settings are useful only if we are targeting local consumers. It is important to know that the “&pws=0” syntax won’t be appended permanently in our search URL. We need to add it manually, each time URL is generated after we perform search. This can be quite tedious, but it is an important thing that we should do. Alternatively, we should use Firefox web browser and install the Grease Monkey plugin, so “&pws=0” syntax can be added automatically.

In general, disabling personalized result is very critical, if we want to make sure that our SEO is highly accurate. There are many SEO methods that we can choose and many people become too confident, thinking that they have achieved their goals, by getting good ranking in search results. In reality, the result is based on their previous online activities. Using Firefox and Grease Monkey plugin is an easy way to make sure that our search results remain unpersonalized. Standardized search results based on global ranking is essential for any kind of SEO effort, so we should make sure to achieve that.