The Google announcement this week about personalised search has created quite a stir. Those who already have a google account will be aware of how your previous search activity effects your current search results. Previously when checking the position of keywords in Google we needed to sign out before getting results uneffected by personalised search.

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Now Google will use a cookie that will effect all searches wether you are logged in or not. The only way to disallow google from personalising searches in future will be to disable the cookie and/or clear the web history:

Turning off search personalization

Because personalised search treats signed-in and signed-out users differently, the instructions for disabling Personalized Search are different for each case. Read more to learn how to turn off personalised searches in Google.

Signed in searches

To disable history-based search customisations while signed in to google, you’ll need to:

Delete Web History

1. Make sure you’re signed in to your Google Account
2. Click My Account on the Google homepage.
3. Click Edit next to ‘My products.’
4. Click Delete Web History.

Note: Deleting Web History from your Google Account stops your web history from being recorded in the future.

Signed out searches

If you are not signed in to a Google Account search personalisation will be the result of a cookie running in your browser.

To disable personalised search when signed out of Google

1. In the top right corner of the search results page, click Web History.
2. Click Disable customisations

Or

Disable Cookies

If you’d rather just delete the cookie storing searches from your browser and start fresh, clear your browsers cookies. Note: this will also remove your saved settings for sites you’ve previously visited.

Explorer

1. In Internet Explorer, click the Tools menu.
2. Click Internet Options
3. Click  General
4. Click  Delete
5. In the ‘Cookies’ section, click Delete Cookies.
6. Click OK to confirm.
7. Click OK once more

Firefox

1. In Firefox, click the Tools menu.
2. Click Clear Private Data.
3. Make sure ‘Cache’ is selected.
4. Click Clear Private Data Now

Note: If you’ve disabled search customizations before clearing your cookies you will now need to do it again, clearing your Google cookie turns on history-based customizations.

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Delete Web History, Disable Cookies, disable personalised search, google, Google Analytics, Google Analytics Course, Google Analytics Training, google cookie, Personalised Results, personalised search, search engine optimisation training, SEO, Turn off search personalization

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