In their ever persistant quest to improve the search results, Google has upgraded their interface to allow users to block sites that they don’t wish to see. This new Google personalized search will be another way for Google to weed out the poor quality farms that gives users a bad experience.

Google Personalized Search

To use this latest feature you will need to be signed into your Google account, at which point a button will appear allowing you to add any site on the search results to your blacklist. A confirmation message will appear and from there on out you will no longer see that website again when you’re searching. There will also be a way for you to manage all these blocked sites so that you can reenlist websites that you had previously blocked.

Google has said they won’t use this data as another ranking factor, but this doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. Already Google is following the blocked sites from their Chrome toolbar quite closely, and they will also be keeping note of the stats they collect here. While using it as a ranking signal is unlikely due to the way some could sabotage competitors, they will most likely correlate the date with new algorithm improvements to see if its in line with what the people say.

Google’s personalized search will most likely not play a huge factor as the savvy types already know which sites they won’t go into while the more gullible searchers most likely won’t know how to make use of this new feature.