Google vs. Other Personalized Search Tools
Google has set a new standard for usefulness and ease of use with My Search History. Ask Jeeves and Yahoo introduced personalization features last year, and AOL Search added a nifty search history feature with its recent upgrade. But none are as compelling as My Search History.
Ask Jeeves introduced My Jeeves in September 2004. Danny weighed in with comments about the new service in a blog post, noting that it really amounted to baby steps toward personalization by Ask Jeeves. He also noted that MSN was the first to introduce personal search history in 1999 via Internet Explorer, but this program was quietly withdrawn.
I wrote about My Yahoo Search in the SearchDay article Yahoo Introduces Personal Search, back in October 2004. While I was reasonably impressed with the service, I concluded that it didn't offer compelling reasons to use it unless you were looking for what amounts to an enhanced bookmark utility that's tied to Yahoo search results.
Other services such as A9.com and Eurekster have offered personalized search for some time. We've also got nifty services such as Looksmart's Furl, Onfolio, Nextaris and others that help you to create your own personal archive of web pages and make them searchable.
But all of these are one-step away from being directly integrated with a major search engine. Google's My Search History doesn't replace all of the features these other programs offer—at least not yet. But it is the strongest personal search offering from a major search engine to date, and is something most frequent Google users will want to set up and use on a regular basis.
Don't expect Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, MSN or AOL Search to stand still. Personalized search has long been touted as one of the holy grails for the industry. This year the promise is finally being realized in a way that strikes the appropriate balance between useful results and privacy concerns. Beginning today with Google's launch of My Search History, I expect to see major leaps ahead in the arena of personalized search—and that's a good thing.
From:http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3499046