Google Personalizes Search With Stars
For nearly five years, Google has been tailoring results with personalized search. Today the company announced a new feature in search that makes it easier for users to mark and rediscover their favorite web content ? stars.
With stars, users can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time theyr perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of their results when relevant. Here's what the new "Starred results" feature looks like:
Users don't have to keep track of stars or even have to remember whether or not they starred something. A By performing a search and they will be rediscover their starred items.
Stars sync with users' Google Bookmarks and the Google Toolbar, so theyr can always see their list of starred items in one place and organize them. Even beyond the results page, while browsing the web users can click the star icon in Toolbar to create a bookmark, and those pages will start showing up in the new stars feature.
Stars in search replace SearchWiki.
"In our testing, we learned that people really liked the idea of marking a website for future reference, but they didn't like changing the order of Google's organic search results. With stars, we've created a lightweight and flexible way for people to mark and rediscover web content. For people who like annotations, we have Sidewiki, a more powerful way for people to contribute and discover helpful information next to pages across the Internet. All your existing SearchWiki edits will be preserved with your Google Account," Cedric Dupont, Google's product manager explained.
Stars in search are rolling out in the next couple days and will be available globally for all signed-in users, Google said.
Users don't have to keep track of stars or even have to remember whether or not they starred something. A By performing a search and they will be rediscover their starred items.
Stars sync with users' Google Bookmarks and the Google Toolbar, so theyr can always see their list of starred items in one place and organize them. Even beyond the results page, while browsing the web users can click the star icon in Toolbar to create a bookmark, and those pages will start showing up in the new stars feature.
Stars in search replace SearchWiki.
"In our testing, we learned that people really liked the idea of marking a website for future reference, but they didn't like changing the order of Google's organic search results. With stars, we've created a lightweight and flexible way for people to mark and rediscover web content. For people who like annotations, we have Sidewiki, a more powerful way for people to contribute and discover helpful information next to pages across the Internet. All your existing SearchWiki edits will be preserved with your Google Account," Cedric Dupont, Google's product manager explained.
Stars in search are rolling out in the next couple days and will be available globally for all signed-in users, Google said.