An Introduction to Personalized Search in Google & Bing

Lisa Hirst Carnes | September 2023

If you work in SEO, it’s only a matter of time before you get the perennial question about personalized search. Over the years, I’ve gotten this question too many times to count!

A few days ago, it happened again. A client asked why she saw one result in a Google search while her colleague saw something else. We can thank personalized search for that.

This blog post delves into personalized search and its implications.

From an SEO expert’s point of view, personalized results are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they offer targeted marketing. On the other, they make it challenging to understand if SEO is effective.

What Are Personalized Search Engine Results?

Results are customized to users based on their search history, location, device type, and even social connections. The idea is to serve the user the most relevant content to improve user experience.

Search engines use complex algorithms to track and analyze user behavior and preferences. They then use this information to customize the search engine results pages (SERPs). Experts estimate that these algorithms update over 500 times a year. While most of these updates are minor, many affect what comes up in the search results. Search Engine Journal compiled a History of Algorithm Updates if you want to learn more.

Personalized Search Considerations

Keyword Ranking Variability

Traditional SEO techniques often involve optimizing for specific keywords. Personalized results complicate this because rankings can vary from one user to another. At ArcStone, we usually target topic themes instead of keywords.

Importance of User Engagement Metrics

With personalized results, user behavior becomes a critical factor. Metrics like click-through rate (CTR), dwell time, and bounce rate influence the algorithm. This is another reason to make sure users engage with your content!

Local SEO Significance

Local SEO efforts become crucial since location is a key personalization factor. Optimizing for local search is essential if your organization offers local services or products. This means paying attention to local citations, reviews, and listings like Google My Business.

Difficulty in Monitoring and Reporting

Personalization makes it more challenging to track SEO efforts as the SERPs are not the same for everyone. We rely on aggregate data and other tools to resolve this issue.

Content Relevance

Personalization increases the need for relevant, quality content that meets the user’s intent. Personalized SERPs favor content that resonates with a specific audience.

Social Signals and Reviews

Personalized results may also consider social signals like shares, likes, and reviews.

Consider social media optimization and reputation management as part of your SEO strategy. This means paying attention to reviews and interacting with your audience.

Privacy Concerns

While not an SEO issue, data collection has raised user privacy concerns. This could affect how much data is available for personalization, depending on regulations. We’re seeing this firsthand with data thresholding in Google Analytics 4. Data thresholds prevent anyone from inferring user identity based on demographics or interests.

Device Optimization

Different devices also produce personalized results because users’ intent changes with the device. This makes it essential for SEO strategies to consider multi-device optimization.

Personalized search results introduce complexity to SEO. But we always recommend optimizing for your audience first. Contact us today to find out what an SEO campaign can do for your organization.