Friday 11 March 2011

Google Allows Users to Block Sites from Search Results

     There has been recent controversy over whether or not Google's search results have been becoming less reliable, making sites that one would not find valuable coming up at the top. I talked a lot about this in a recent blog post. Google changed it's algorithm to try to bring higher quality sites up in the search results, and whether or not that worked has also been debated. Now Google, although they are keeping the algorithm change, is giving the user control.
     The new feature allows users to block all results from a specific website from their search results by clicking a link under the site in the results. The actual link is located directly under the website in the search result, next to the Cached and Similar buttons, and reads, "Block all [example.com] results".
     Google announced this feature yesterday on their official blog, and is rolling it out over the next few days. If you don't see it now, expect to see it soon.
     This is yet another attempt by Google to try to improve their results. It seems like a good idea, and it is definitely the first that actually allows human input. It seems like there should be an easier way to block a website, because I don't want to have to go back to Google search results to do it, but for now it should be an effective way to keep unwanted sites out of the search results.