Google incorporates user voting in its search results

The last time I searched for a topic in Google, the first ten results for the topic were pointing to sites with useless information and numerous ads, whose sole purpose of existence was to make money for its owners. I am not claiming that all search in Google provide the same results but spam sites which fight to the top of the heap of search results are a big nuisance for the search engines as well as users alike.

So what are the alternatives at hand ? There are directory services like dmoz.org and Yahoo directories which provide results that are constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. Then there are social bookmarking tools like del.icio.us which allow you to bookmark all the useful content you come across while browsing as well as share it with others.

Google has now embraced and extended the features of directory services and social bookmarking sites into its search results by allowing users to vote for a result and even bookmark them. Here is what Google has to say about this new experiment (And I quote) ...

This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you'll continue to see those changes.

If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you've made.

To use this new feature, you have to be logged in to your Google account while searching for a topic in Google Search. You can vote up a search result by clicking on a "up-arrow" sign and remove it from your search by clicking on a "X" (X sign). When you vote up a result, Google will insert an orange asterix (*) besides it and for the search terms related to the sites these will filter to the top.

So start voting for your favorite articles in Google from within your personalized Google search. Now you have got the best of both social bookmarking and directory services incorporated into your Google search results.