A few days ago I asked: Should Search Engines Log Your Search History? It looks like Google plans to do exactly that - and more. It seems they've filed a patent which will let them serve up search results by tracking your every move - online and off. Personalized advertising will no doubt follow. The Search Engine Journal writes:
Google has filed for an organic search patent, termed Personalization of placed content ordering in search results, to serve organic search results based on user profiles. Google has also applied for a similar behavioral targeting patent for its advertising network, but this seems to be a first from Google with plans to integrate user profiling into natural search ranking.
Such profiles are created by Google and gathered from previous queries, web navigation behavior via tracked links and possibly sites visited which serve Google ads, computers with Google Applications installed such as Desktop Search, Google Wi-fi Connection or Sidebar, and personal information which Google identifies which may be “implicitly or explicitly provided by the user.”
This new ranking system, which is a spin off of PageRank and the current Google ranking algorithm, could be referred to as Profile Rank. What is the difference between this new ranking system and Google Personalized Search? Personalized Search was beta tested by Google users who have opted in to Google profile building while the new Profile Rank is based upon user profiles built by tracking a users web habits in and outside of Google Search, even if the user has not opted in to be served personalized results or is a registered Google Account member : Wide Spread Personalization to all users.