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Remove Results

By jbat - January 30, 2006

RemoveI’ve been quite heads down on FM stuff these past two weeks, forgive me. But using Google lately (as a registered user) I’ve noticed something new, and readers are also tipping me to it. You can now remove results from future searches. I wonder how many folks are actually doing this?

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  • http://www.soxiam.com soxiam

    John, I believe that “feature” has been out for at least a month if not more and being a per-user feature I honestly can’t see many people using it — unless you’re performing the same search on Google all the time and don’t want something specific to be included (spam sites, previously visited useless links, etc.)

  • Brian Mingus

    That’s been around for months!

  • Nicholas Miell

    I’ve used it to remove several forum/slashdot-esque sites run/populated by morons.

  • http://www.iyne.org Riad

    This feature has been on since Oct or Nov I think. I m not sure what they are doing with the answers. Tweaking the algorithms??

  • JG

    My goodness.. they’ve implemented a crude form of relevance feedback.. a 30-year old information retrieval technique. How innovative!

    One of these days, they’ll actually implement the full-blown algorithm, and use the information they gain from my “thumbs down” to re-order my search results. Maybe even dynamically, in real-time. Now there’s a good use of AJAX…

  • Brandon

    I’ve heard about this for a while myself. And frankly, I’ve always wondered, “Why should I do this?” I mean, sure, it’s more convenient for me if I make things more relevant to me … but then I miss out on what everyone else sees.

    For example, I could change the Google News page to show only lists of subjects I’m interested in. But then I’d miss out on 1) headlines the rest of the world sees and notices, and 2) headlines on subjects I don’t know I’m interested in.

    That is, until I read JG’s post. Perhaps, this could be a type of relevance feedback. But if it is, I fear it could be abused … imagine the SEO’s of a company telling 5 people to do a Google search at home, and remove their competitors’ listings.

    I’ll admit, I’m slightly impressed at the concept … but that’s all.

  • Andres

    i don’t know how long this has been up for google, but yahoo has had this feature up for a ong time. perhaps you guys might be thinking about that instead of google?