Take control of your search results

Google announces SearchWiki, a tool for users to control their results, share with other searchers.

Now you can customize your search results by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. You can also see how other other searchers have customized any given result. Google today announced a new feature designed to give people greater control over the results they see. Do you think a lower ranked result is more useful? It's easy to promote it to the top, delete a result you're not interested in, or comment on results.

You'll see the changes you make whenever you do the same searches while signed in to your Google Account, or until you decide to undo them. The changes you make only affect your own search results, and your changes will be included on a public comments page where you can also view how the community has edited or commented on a set of results.

It's easy to use:

• Prefer a certain search result?
  Click to move it to the top of the page, and this result will appear at the top whenever you do the same search in the future. We'll add this marker next to it so you'll recognize it later.
• Don't like a result?
  Click to remove a result, and it'll remain hidden whenever you do the same search in the future.
• Know of a better webpage?
  At the bottom of any search results page, click "Add a result" to add a page that you consider relevant to that search. The page you suggested will appear at the top with this marker .
• Want to comment on a result?
  Click to open a text box and type your comment. You'll see it the next time this result returns for any of your searches. Comments are a great way to save and recall any thoughts you had or notes you took about a particular webpage. And comments are public, so you can share with the community and see what others thought about the same results.

"We've always said that the best search engine is the one that understands what the individual user wants," said Juergen Galler, Director of Product Management at Google. "SearchWiki really puts that in action: this is an even deeper level of customization than we've offered before, because people know best what search results they're looking for."

To try SearchWiki, simply do a normal Google search while logged in with a Google Account. To create a new Google Account, click 'Sign in' on the Google homepage and follow the instructions to set one up.