by Julie Bort

Google adds ‘preferred sites’ to search results

Analysis

Jan 19, 20092 mins

Everyone has their own favorite sites, whether it be IMDB for movie reviews or NetworkWorld.com for the latest in technology. But how often do those favorite sites appear at the top of Google’s search results? If your answer is “not often,” Google’s experimenting with a new search feature that may change that. Called Preferred Sites, the tool lets users customize their search results by including the sites they visit and use most often.

According to Alex Chitu at the Google Operating System Blog, Google suggests some sites based on your personal search history, but it also lets users add any sites they wish. He says the feature is like an extension of SearchWiki, which did something similar for individual search queries. Once set up, he says Preferred Sites is a good tool for:

“adding sites you trust for finding a certain kind of information (movie reviews, sports results), adding more obscure sites that aren’t likely to appear in the top results (local news sites) and a partial replacement for bookmarks.”

The feature is experimental at this stage, and not yet available to everyone. To see if you are one of the chosen few, go to the Google preferences page and log in. If you’re part of the experiment, you’ll see a new section marked “Preferred Sites,” which lists several suggestions as well as a box for adding individual selections. For more information, visit Google’s help page.

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