Yesterday, I was taking a client through the ins and outs of Google AdWords when I realized something was very different with my Google natural search results. Every result was followed by an up arrow and an X. Out of curiosity I began clicking on these new features to find I was able to customize my search results. Google was nice enough to offer me the option of learning more about this new feature so I read up on it.

For one, you need to be signed in to be eligible for this feature and secondly I don’t think it’s tied to your Google account altogether. On our conference room computer I was signed into my Google account over Firefox but when I did the same on Safari I wasn’t offered the experimental feature, likewise I wasn’t offered the results with my main laptop using Firefox. My assumption is they are offering this feature at random and saving it in a session state.

Although I thought the feature was fun to play with, I guess I’m missing the bigger picture. If I’m searching for data then I’m usually looking for something which I know little about so what makes me an authority on which results are better then others. Are most people going to take the time to go back to Google and remove pages which they felt were inaccurate?

On the flip side, if Google’s index returns results which are spammy or irrelevant then I guess I could remove them from the index. Then again, I’m removing them from my personal index and it likely won’t effect Google’s main index.

This new feature feels alot like StumbleUpon in that I can give a thumbs up to good results and a thumbs down for poor results. For me, this feature make the most sense if Google is going to acquire a social networking company. Why? Because if Google factors my personal index into their own index it would provide a filter for my social network.

It’s an interesting feature but I’m still wondering how it will eventually be used.