Google Now Tracks Which Search Results You Click?

Jack writes "Has anyone else noticed that the best search engine out there, Google, now generates links for some of its search results which point back to Google before redirecting you to the site's URL? I can't help thinking they'll be using this information to sell targeted search results and measure how effective it is. I guess they have to make a buck, but this could be the start of a very slippery slope. It's also interesting to see which search queries generate tracking results. For example, "Quake" generates them for every link." The monetization of Google proceeds...

some thoughts

[esonik]

They have the AdWord [google.com] program where as advertiser you pay for display of your ad on search results for a selected keyword. However this is not the case with "Quake" (there is no ad).

Links with "RealNames" seem to be redirected too (try "amazon") however in a different way (and only for the first result that actually links to the holder of the TM).

Maybe they are just trying to extend their formula for PageRank [scu.edu.au]: users will more likely follow links that look promising, leaving out the obviously misleading ones. Statistical information on followed links could then be incorporated into the PR.

Oh well

[sanemind]

If it gets too bad, google will fall the way of altavista and others, and some fresh new company will come along, untainted by commercial biases, to be adopted by the (informed) masses... only to be bought out, sell their soul... rince, wash, repeat.

Still, perhaps google is just doing this to better determine the overall validity/appeal/appropriateness of the links it returns, to use this to add an additional weight into their relative ranking. [example: If no one ever finds what they are looking for in items 3 and 7, perhaps they should be lower down, eh?]

I'm tempted to add the obligatory "why dosen't someone start a true copyleft-esque open-for-ever-by-viral-contract search portal for the better the world", etc. If only bandwidth and processing power weren't so expensive. Google can't survive the demands placed on it by it's popularity without some form of recompense for it's inevitable costs....

I had hoped that their contracting out as the engine of yahoo might allow for them to remain pure and uncontaminated. Only time will tell.


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man sig

Google say the following

[tagishsimon]

Google say the following

What Information Do We Collect?

From time to time we may request that you provide us with certain personal information about you in connection with various services offered on our site. Google does not collect any personal information about you (such as your name, email address, etc.) except when you specifically and knowingly provide such information.

Links to Other Sites

The sites displayed as search results or linked to by Google Search Services are developed by people over whom Google exercises no control. Other links, such as those for the Google-friends mailing list archive, are also on sites not controlled by Google. These other sites may send their own cookies to users, collect data, or solicit personal information. Google may choose to exhibit its search results in the form of a "URL redirecter." When Google uses a URL redirecter, if you click on a URL from a search result, information about the click is sent to Google, and Google in turn sends you to the site you clicked on. Google uses this URL information to understand and improve the quality of Google's search technology. For instance, Google uses this information to determine how often users are satisfied with the first result of a query and how often they proceed to later results.

With Whom Does Google Share Information?

Google may share information about you with advertisers, business partners, sponsors, and other third parties. However, we only divulge aggregate information about our users and will not share personally identifiable information with any third party without your express consent. For example, we may disclose how frequently the average Google user visits Google, or which other query words are most often used with the query word "Linux." Please be aware, however, that we will release specific personal information about you if required to do so in order to comply with any valid legal process such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, or court order.

Taking privary a bit too far

[gengee]

This is just absurd. Firstly, after a quick grep, I find that google has placed a single cookie on my computer - One that I asked them to place, to save my preferences for language settings. They may or may not use this "preference ID" to track where I click. I really could not care less. They don't have my home address. They don't have my email address. They have no phone number. Not even a fake name. This is not a decision I made - they simply never asked for any of this information. This is closer to anononymity than you could ever hope to get in the 'real' world.

If they want to target advertisements to me, so be it. I might actually click on a few of them. At some point, someone has to pay for their large and expensive network. While I'm not convinced advertising alone is capable of doing this, at least it's a start. They provide a *great* service. Having said that, it occurs to me that I would greatfully pay 5$/month to use the search engine.

Just my two cents.
signature smigmature

Stop Google bashing

[Stephen]

Every change Google makes at the moment seems to produce a reactionary story like this one. So they want to know which links people click on... so what? The data isn't even personally identifiable.

Google produces the right results with a nice clean interface. Even the ads are in unobtrusive text boxes! What more do you want? If they generate profit at the same time, more power to them.

Potentially good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really.

Consider that they already know what terms I'm searching for, and what positions the returned links hold in the results.

They can set a cookie containing your search terms. They can also tell if you go to page 2,3, 15, or 25 of the search results. They can also compare the search terms used with search terms used on subsequent searches, and within a given time period. They can see that you did a search on:

goatse.cx pictures

clicked over to page two of the results, then, a minute later, did a search on:

goatse.cx pictures "natalie portman"

This data could be correlated with other goatse.cx searches to better tune the results page. I'm not sure what algorithms they'd use to tune said searches, but I don't have a programming job at google.

Bah!

[plashdoy]

I think only the shivering Chihuahuas at EPIC.Org would worry about such a non-issue. If it really bothers you to have Google "exploit" your search terms, use Topclick [topclick.com] then. Same search engine, but without the ads, cookie or search exploitation.

Willing Target

[Kibo]

Sometimes it seems that I'm the only one who thinks that targeting is an offense which is not quite worthy of a public stoning. Secretly, I think it's handy. When I search for some arcane thing, it seems like I'll never find it, I can't help but think that it would be nice if a banner ad for a mint in box Tokutaku VF-1J Valkyrie just poped up. I just think it would be glorious if instead of me searching for products, they could search for me. Sure there are bad forms of targeted ads, but those really are controllable. I know google doesn't really do this, but still, if they did would it be so horrible if they gave you your data and a link to something you might want to buy? Maybe there is anime toy cleaner out there, and I really do need this stuff, only no one told me. Maybe it's crap. Maybe I'm lazy as hell. But still, it would be sweet if products that I want to buy came looking for me.

Collection everywhere

[fm6]

This is similar to a feature I've noticed in Internet Explorer. If you enter anything in the address box that isn't a fully qualified URL (even if it's just a web address with "http://" missing), it gets passed to a Microsoft server, which is responsible for expanding the URL, interpreting it as a search, etc. Since few people bother to type out the "http://", Mr. Bill would have no trouble maintaining a log of every user's browsing habits.

I haven't looked into it, but I gather there's a similar feature in Netscape/Mozilla.

I think the bottom line is that a user who wan't absolute privacy has to anonymize all web usage. If you don't believe that's possible, or you're just not paranoid enough, you have to hope that Google, Microsoft, et al. actually stick to their own privacy policies.

__________________

Could they be doing something better?

[funkman]

They may be making a correlation between your search criteria and what you had clicked on as a match. With any luck, with such data they can make their search engine better.

Googlebot hasn't pulled the page yet.

[yerricde]

Sometimes, Google adds a page to the index before it GETs the full text and returns it in keyword searches for pages that link to it.

Re:Bah!

[phillipps]

Hmm.. I just tried topclick. Bright orange background. Blue-on-blue menus. Tiny sans-serif fonts. Oh, and then monospaced fonts on the result pages. Why?

I won't be troubling them again.

Re:Oh well

[bonzoesc]

If an open source search site would be started, all the porn sites would end up top-list because they stand to gain the most by looking at the source code and adding an entire fricken dictionary to their first page.

Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate

google cached pages

[unitron]

Has anyone besides myself had a problem lately with clicking on the "cached version" links only to have google send them a page saying that they can't find their own cached copy?

Improving the Quality of Search Results

[SIWaters]

Actually, there are a lot of reasons why a search engine might want to know what links visitors click on -- and that have nothing to do with invading privacy or trying to sell you something. Among them is to add another "dimension vector" to the relevance space that could be used for, among other things, scheduling the spider (i.e., "popular" sites (in the google sense) that a lot of people visit from search results pages get spidered more often than others). If you think about it, this is just an expansion of the basic operating procedure of the google engine (at least as I understand it).

Re:Willing Target

[Chasuk]

Almost all behavior - except for shitting, urinating, fucking, masturbating, eating, drinking, and breathing - is learned. So what? Is all learned behavior bad? If so, then you had better stop responding to messages on Slashdot, because you are using at least two learned behaviors to perform the aggregate task of "responding" - those behaviors being reading and typing.

I like to read, and I have not been deluded into thinking that I enjoy doing so. In particular, I enjoy reading books in the genre of Science Fiction, so advertisements which targeted my particular learned behavior of reading and enjoying Science Fiction novels would be extremely welcome, even if it was a conspiracy by THE MAN to sell me more books.

As for some learned behaviors being addictive, so what? Addictions are not inherently evil. I have friends who are addicted to reading mystery novels, or addicted to watching anime or Red Dwarf/Doctor Who/Star Trek episodes, and these addictions give them nothing but pleasure. They spend money on things that you or I might consider wasteful - but paying for anything other than food, drink and shelter can be considered by someone, somewhere, an indulgence.

My parents happened to live, at the time of my conception, in the prosperous West, and I am grateful. I promote neither gross excess nor asceticism; moderation seems to me a noble ideal. However, I can, and do, control most of my spendthrift impulses, and I don't think my behavior would be any different if advertising was targeted at me specifically (or to a market segment which happened to contain my purchasing profile).

Just my .02 cents worth.

What Nonsense

[frost22]

Hello ! Good Morning! Would somebody please wake up ?

This is the very Idea of Google. They rank the search results by rate of click throughs from previous searches. This is what makes Google so much better than every other engine. They've been doing this from the beginning!

Somebody should start doing his homework!

f.

re: google now tracking result clicks

[awatters]

I noticed that yahoo started doing the same thing recently also. They give the formula http://srd.yahoo.com/srst/7079471/slashdot/1/12/*h ttp://www.slashdot.org/

Re:What Nonsense

[tcyun]

I believe that the "very idea" of Google is actually different that you are stating. As I am to understand, Google originally rated search results based upon the number of other pages that lined to a given URL. The click throughts that were displayed were not part of the equasion.

Many search engines count click throughs and modify the individual URL's result weight based on the number of click throughs. This is a well known algorithm, but is not, as far as I understood, part of Google's original system.

More accurate and objective information at:

- http://www.google.com/technology/index.html

- http://searchenginewatch.com/

Re:What Nonsense

[SIWaters]

Actually, that is not how Google works at all -- it's the way DirectHit works. What Google did (at the beginning, anyway) was to look at links between sites and pages. "Important" pages are ones that are linked to from a lot of other pages. "Really important" pages are ones that are linked to from a lot of "Important" pages. The real contribution Google makes is to understand that relevance (or popularity) is not a one-dimensional space. If you can establish a number of dimensions/vectors to relevance, then you can return better results. This is combining DirectHit with Google.

Re:Oh well

[sanemind]

Such a nightmare might be avoidable if the design was robust enough to begin with. Something with spheres of authority and the oppurtunity to ban cycles of self-promoting false links, [as well as some sort of probalistic detection of self referencial simmilar script generated rings]


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man sig

Re:Bah!

[binford2k]

It looks nowhere as neat and clean as Google does!

Relax.

[Bender Unit 22]

Or they could be,
1) Counting the most popular links to provide you with a list over the most popular links.
2) Counting clicks on links to provide you with a "People who search for aaaa, often goes to bbbbb"

I make websites too and I want to track as much as possible from the users, including where they go. because I want to find out what the visitors want and then focus on that. And when it comes to clicking on external links I often use it to provide popular-links-lists so if you are bored and don't know where to go, you can see where everyone else are going and get an idea about where to surf.
It might not be a bad thing.
And the thing about them making money on the website:"There's no such thing as a free lunch".
If they can't make money, there's no site in the long run, it is as simple as that.

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ego gratification

[K-Man]

You have to understand the frustration of running a search engine: you never know how good your result ranking is, because you never know which result the user clicked on, or whether the user simply gave up and went to another search engine.

The only way to track this behavior is to put up a redirect (or run an ISP - the free ones log just about everything).

Re:Collection everywhere

[RickHunter]

I seriously doubt Mozilla does anything like this. Given that its source code is available, I suspect that if it did, it would be very quickly altered so it didn't.

Netscape and Mozilla are now, for all intents and purposes, seperate programs. Please don't lump them together.

-RickHunter