Google’s SearchWiki

Google announced the launch of their new “SearchWiki” today and, quite frankly, I’m not completely sure I get it. Well, I guess it seems obvious enough at first glance, but what about the long-term viability?

Here’s the pitch:

Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? Maybe you’re an avid hiker and the trail map site you always go to is in the 4th or 5th position and you want to move it to the top. Or perhaps it’s not there at all and you’d like to add it. Or maybe you’d like to add some notes about what you found on that site and why you thought it was useful. Starting today you can do all this and tailor Google search results to best meet your needs.

Now, the key here (and what has been missed by some hysterical folks) that you’re tailoring those search results for your own viewing. Not anyone elses. If you’re not logged into your google account, they you’ll not be seeing your previous changes or comments. So that all makes sense and can be handy.

Where it gets weird, though, is this bit:

You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link.

Your search results are still your customized results. However, you can see if anyone else has edited those results as well. Now, that strikes me as something that the SEO wonks are surely going to bust nuts trying to pervert in some way (or am I overly cynical?).

And are there any controls? For instance, I did a search on “techcrunch” as I just knew there’d be some changes and comments. And there were. I clicked on See all notes for this SearchWiki to see something like this:

Actually, the comments were better than I expected… but suppose the comments were absolutely slanderous? What options does the site owner have?

Suppose a bunch of folks band together to “google bomb” a site up to the top of the listings? Does that only really apply when someone clicks the ’see all notes’ link or does it alter search results in some other way?

Is there any concept of moderation or is this truly a wild west democracy?

Should be interesting to watch, that’s for sure!

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