Personalized Search is automatically enabled when you sign up for any Google services. This feature of Google save your search for future references. So next time when you perform any search, Google includes your early searches as well. Personalized search results ofter jumble the search results giving priority to the ones which Google thinks is more relevant for you. By default it is always enabled but to override it you can customize this feature anytime by disabling it. Personalized search works differently for signed-in and signed-out users.
Customize Singed In Searches
To perform disable personalized search here, all you have to do is remove the Web history from your Google account. Follow these simple steps:
- On the Google hompage, click “My Account”
- Click Edit (next to My Product)
- Then click “Remove Web History”
This will erase all your searches from the Google account which you have made earlier. So next time when you search for anything new, your early searches will not be taken under consideration via Google.
Customize Signed Out Searches
When you are not signed in, your search is based on previous searches you have made on your web browser. To disable previous search results, do the following:
- Type your search query, on the top right corner of search result page, search for “Web History” > Click Web History.
- Click “Disable customizations based on search activity”.
Turning Off Personalized Search Results Temporarily
Also, directly you can turn off desired personalized search results by appending &pws=0 in the url, which will temporarily disable your web search. For example searching for Binary Turf it will look like: http://www.google.com/search?q=binary+turf&pws=0
So using the above tricks you can always turn off personalized search results and get unbiased search results.
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{ 4 comments on Turn-off Google Personalized Search Results… read them below or add one }
I also use the &pws=0 to as this is really helpful to reflect only unbiased results, great for checking the real rank of the sites I monitor.
How often do you get to use these customized searches lately? Did it cover a huge difference of the results versus the ones that came from usual search?
Cheers,
Dave
I do always use pws=0. Biased results are a sideeffect of Google trying to play intelligent.
I do always use pws=0. Biased results are a sideeffect of Google trying to play intelligent.
Hi I just tried “Disable customizations based on search activity”. The annoying thing is that i had done that before, but somehow it keeps being re activated. as their is no prompt to tell you that it is doing this, i just have to check if it is on if i think my site has risen too fast. This is something that google should really consider looking at.