The launch of Google’s personalized search function in the not-too-distant past is still impacting the world of SEO. There are a lot of people panicking, probably equal numbers of people saying that they aren’t concerned, and many, many more that are simply oblivious. Today we are looking at some of the things that (as a business owner engaged in web marketing) you should know about Google’s personalized search.

1. People that don’t remain signed into a Google account don’t get it … to the same extent

Personalized search gives preference to results that you have visited before, and in order to do this it stores information about your surfing on its database, under your account. If a person doesn’t have a Google account, they don’t get the same level of personalized search – however you will still see results from your home region preferentially displayed, in most cases.

2. Google says … “pws=0″ turns personalization off

If you want to see what the results would look like without the personalization, Google says that you can add pws=0 to the end of your search term, and get an ‘unbiased’ search.

3. Tests say … not true

It seems that including pws=0 doesn’t completely change your search results as much as simply going to a different computer. SEO tests show little difference between a logged-in query and a pws=0 query.

4. The ultimate measure of success will always be the bottom line

All the debate over personalization is really starting to bring home the fact that it is the quality of your information and website that will really help build your bottom dollar. Ironically, this is exactly what Google wants … damn them!