I just wrote about Personalized Search and specifically SearchWiki a few days ago and alas, Google surprises us with another twist to the tale. They are testing SearchWiki on Google Adwords, allowing searchers who are logged in to remove (delete) Paid Ads from the SERP’s.

In case you missed what SearchWiki is, it lets you customize your Google Web Search results. In other words, you can delete search results you do not like, promote the ones you do like to the top of the listing and even comment on them. (Read my full blog post on “The change in Search and Organic Search Rankings“.)

Like I said above, with this test of SearchWiki on Paid Ads, you are simply allowed to remove ads. You cannot promote or comment on Ads as with the organic results and you can only do this if you are logged in with your Google Account details.

Is there cause for panic?
All of a sudden the Search World has been thrown upside down (yet again) and many have been asking questions about how this will affect Quality Scores, how much abuse this might generate, will it affect ad variations for that domain for “the same search in the future” and also questions about how much users will really engage with this.

I don’t believe there is any cause for panic. The Pay Per Click (PPC) model has for a long time been “the” mainstream source of revenue for Google and personally and I do not believe that Google will willingly hijack the success of one of their most profitable tools.

Second to that I believe that Google are very aware of how it might affect Advertiser confidence as a whole. Advertisers pay a lot of money to Google to advertise their products and many do have confidence in the PPC model. Google has worked hard to establish trust in their product but a permanent feature like SearchWiki on Paid Ads may damage or dent that confidence.

Finally, I believe that Google is simply testing to see how 1. The Search Marketing World reacts (I have no proof) and 2. how the general Google user responds to changes in SERP’s. I am still of the belief that Google is continueing in their ideal to deliver the most relevant results to the end-user.

Oh, before I forget, some say that this is only being tested in the US, but I am seeing the little “X” next to Paid Search Ads via multiple accounts from my location here in South Africa. Guess Google is testing global market reaction?

How long will the test last and what will Google learn from it? I don’t know, we’ll just have to wait to find out!