Response to Google’s new search tool, SearchWiki, upon rollout last week was not so much acclaim as confusion. Why now? Why at all? Why go uncharacteristically right past Beta? Why mess with the core search experience? Oh so many questions.

Already there are users out there who want their old Google back and don’t want to log out to get it. This is why GreaseMonkey was invented – it’s a measure of SearchWiki’s unpopularity in some quarters that there’s been code written to kill it.

So why would normally fussy Felix Unger-like Google transform user’s search results into a free-for-all that resembles Oscar Madison’s bedroom to some?

Data

This is the answer to practically everything Google does. It may even be why they are cutting back on employee snacks. Although the changes you make in the search rankings only affect your own results and no-one else’s, the reality is that Google would be foolish to ignore large chunks of data pointing one way or another as a result of user searches. Of course this is going to yield insight into and probably changes to their vaunted search algorithms.

They are also able to take a step further down the path to personalized search results, building even more detailed user profiles which will allow them to categorize a user’s likely interests over a shorter number of searches, even for users who don’t log into Google to search.

Cash

SearchWiki helps Google to make money two ways. First it helps them keep people within their site. With engagement becoming an increasingly important metric to some advertisers Google will be able to show that people are hanging out and fiddling with search results, especially the ones related to themselves. This is consistent with other moves such as integrated some site’s search bars into the search results page.

Google will also, within their own network, have a more detailed set of data and a finer ability to precisely target search ads than their competitors. Since you have to be logged into your Google account to use SearchWiki, this sets up a clear demarcation within Google users. This is a group that Google could presumably charge more to reach.

YouTube

Now that Google is racing the clock to fully monetize YouTube they are exporting more and more innovations from their search business over to what is now the number 3 search engine in America. All of the good stuff in number 2 above are applicable to YouTube and arguably, the YouTube platform is better suited to this sort of user interaction with search results anyhow.

With Hulu already reported by some to be making more money than YouTube this could be key to Google’s monetization plans.

With all this in mind, is Google’s vaunted user experience jeopardized by SearchWiki?  I for one find it relatively unobtrusive, but I’m not easily rattled. More importantly, it’s still a better experience than most competitors. You aren’t forced to interact and the buttons are relatively innocuous. Still there are those who disagree. What do you think?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm and is filed under Google, Search: News, YouTube. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.