Recently Google announced that it will be rolling out a new kind of search – one that’s more personal to you. This new search will include three different types of features – personal results, profiles in search and people and pages.
If you’re like me and do a lot of testing with keywords and rankings, you’re annoyed by the idea that your habits on the internet will show up in your search results. While I somewhat understand how this is relevant to me, it gets in the way of identifying what the outside world is looking for.
In other words – I want to know what YOU search for, and where my pages rank when YOU search for things.
Last month I Googled how to disable Google personal search results to see how I can search for things that aren’t tainted by my internet and social media habits.
I was taken to school and learned a few things. So if you are wondering how to disable Google personal search, you can follow any of the methods below.
Method #1
If you want to do it on the fly, and for just the search you’ve made simply look in the upper right hand corner of your search results page.
Notice there are two icons – the person represents the option to show personal results, and the globe represents the option to hide personal results.
Simply click the hide personal results button, and instantly all personal results will be removed from your Google search.
Method #2
If you want to take the first method a step further, and disable Google personal search results for good you can do it through your search settings screen.
In the same area where you disabled Google personal search on the fly, you’ll see a gear icon.
Click the “Search settings” option, and you’ll be taken to a screen, where you can select the “Do not use personal results” option.
Method #3
There’s an old-school method of disabling Google personal search, which isn’t practical as you have to append a parameter to the end of the search URL.
Let’s pretend that you were searching for StudioPress. The URL that you’d end up with would look like http://www.google.com/search?q=studiopress.
If you want to disable Google personal search, simply add &pws=0 to the end of the URL – resulting in http://www.google.com/search?q=studiopress&pws=0.
Conclusion
There you have it. Now you can easily search for your keywords without your Google personal results showing up. Not only will this allow you to identify your rankings better, it also gives you a head start on your competition.
So let’s talk about your methods of keyword research and how you go about things with Google. Chime in by leaving a comment below – this is a great opportunity to have conversation about something we cannot avoid… Google.
The super groovy Bart Simpson chalkboard photo courtesy of Add Letters.
Thanks Brian…did it and re-tweeted…
I have been using Method 1. Usually, don’t see that much difference in search results. That could because my Circles of friends are not searching or shared stuffs I’m interested about.
Thanks for the neat tip Brian. I kept logging out of Google every time I did not want a personal search result. I guess this makes things easy for me. Neat tutorial.
PS. Can you tell me how you created the optin box below post. I would like to create one very similar.
Thanks Brian!
You do such a great job with the “how to” stuff! Works great!
Another method – Use Shift + Ctrl/Cmd + N in Chrome to bring up an incognito window. You are not logged into Google in this window.
Good stuff Rich, I had actually heard of that method before – and was on the fence with putting it up since it only pertained to Chrome.
I think that IE’s InPrivate and Firefox’s Private Browsing do the same thing, but since I use Chrome I just open an incognito window. It’s not foolproof though since you still get results relevant to your location. For example, go Incognito and search “Jobs” and your city (or nearby) will pop up. Try it from a proxy site and the results will be different.
By keeping personal search, Google will include results that involve those I’ve got circled in Google+. Like maybe Brian Gardner’s posts if I search for WordPress themes.
While I agree that there is definitely times I don’t want personal search (like you said testing keywords and rankings), for the most part, I do want the search results that people I know and trust have noted when making everyday searches.
One more option is to use a different browser not logged into any Google services when you need that “clean” search or a Chrome incognito tab.
I do not have the second row of icons under my photo, etc. Am I in the wrong place? Thanks in advance… I appreciate the time you have taken to share this information!
A little confused with what you are talking about. Can you explain in further detail?
Very useful post. Thanks. But I share cgraeber’s confusion. Where is this screen, with this second row of icons under the photo, etc.?
My google search page looks very different. I have posted a screen shot here.
http://lisalamagna.com/marketing/turn-off-google-personal-search-results/
Try Googling something first, and then the second row of icons should appear on the results page.
Hi Brian,
How do you create the black newsletter box right under your blog comments? Also, I have disqus but my comments will not show:(
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Nate
Hey Nate – sorry for taking so long to approve the comment, for some reason it was placed into spam. I might write up a tutorial on how I did that in the next few days. Stay tuned!
Thanks Brian. I disabled mine.
I don’t think that it is appropriate for Google to try to “assume” what I am looking for by any other thing than what I type in the box. Past experience should not dictate my current search results. I’m looking for the most relevant and pertinent of content (website) out there when I do a search, not what I may have searched for in ages past.
Hey Brian,
Hmm… if only I knew it was that easy haha thanks for the great tip, already modified my personal results setting and it works!
Sergio
Good to hear Sergio!
Hi Brian, great post, thanks for the useful information, I have been using always the 3rd method, tried 1st one but I don’t get the icons even on the search page results. It is frustrating when you are doing market research, take some screenshots of the SERPs, arrange a PDF and your client calls to let you know that his SERPs are not like the ones in your screenshot…