Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Speaker: Bryan Horling, Group Product Manager, Google Inc.

• Web History – saves web history within google account
• Localization – Using the searcher’s geolocation to affect search, different levels of granularity, both explicit and implicit information
• Localization by: country, region, city
• Personalization – Using searcher’s personal context to rank results, recent search (short term), web history (long term)
• Universal search (mixed results) affected by localization
• Recent searches: Disambiguation (Example: search for “ethan allen” then “jordans” – Jordan’s furniture #1, 2; search for “jordans” – Air Jordan’s #1, 2)
• Web history: disambiguation – skew results based on history, website preference, refinding (shows visits)
• What’s this mean for SEM? Half empty: collecting metrics is difficult, seeing how your pages rank
• What’s this mean for SEM? Half full: easier for people looking for your service to find you, easier to retain customers who prefer your business
• What’s this mean for SEM? Top position is not winner-take-all, create compelling and interesting content, appeal to users, not search engines, you can control personalization for your searches (use search details, disable it by appending &pws=0 to searches, sign out, firefox extension: greasemonkey script, edit or turn off web history)

NOTE: These notes are the major points of the presentations, and do not include every point the presenter made.