[Worzel]

How long has G been offering to let you block results from a given site if it thinks they're not what you want?

I just Googled an old friend - the first result was a facebook page that I briefly visited then hit the back button, only to see a link pop up under the link I'd clicked reading "block all facebook.com results", with a helpful popup hint suggesting I can block them if I'm logged in to search and the link wasn't helpful. Tried it again with another site and got exactly the same result.

I've never seen this before, and I can't imagine it's going to make many people happy. I assume the block would only apply to that one search, but even so it could hide potentially useful links, and you can bet G is keeping count of which domains get blocked most with a view to refining their relevance etc. Bound to have some impact on traffic, too, for those who get blocked. On the other hand, I suppose it might help those further down the results by filtering out unwanted pages near the top, but I'm not impressed.

[Tigger]

FFS how much does this pissing search engine want to control things

I don't know if this is just for US traffic but I'm not seeing that in europe .......yet

I've never been able to get my head around this personal search CRAP - after all isn't a SE supposed to show current "fresh" results and with personal search all its doing is showing the sites you've clicked on

madness

[Worzel]

Originally Posted by Tigger

FFS how much does this pissing search engine want to control things

I don't know if this is just for US traffic but I'm not seeing that in europe .......yet

I've never been able to get my head around this personal search CRAP - after all isn't a SE supposed to show current "fresh" results and with personal search all its doing is showing the sites you've clicked on

madness

Well, I'm in the UK, but I routinely use g.com/ncr, so it may just be for the US market.

I can see how results relevant to you might be better than generic results, but of course that falls down in reality when you search for something that you wouldn't normally search for. Intelligence is all very well, as long as it works - when it doesn't it's a pain.

[Tigger]

Well, I'm in the UK, but I routinely use g.com/ncr, so it may just be for the US market.

hopefully it will stay there although I'm sure we'll see a roll out

So G gets millions of free reviewers as they gather more data .......