After much hype and even longer testing on a random segment of users, Google’s search customization feature, dubbed SearchWiki. It’s now available for any user, provided they’re logged into their Google account.

SearchWiki allows a user to customize search results for any query by moving results up or down by their relevance to the user. One can also delete irrelevant links so they won’t show up again for that user. Notes can also be added for the different sites, which will show up every time that particular site shows up in search results. Thus one can describe why a site is helpful or useful for later on.

The functionality is now available to all signed in Google account users, and changes that are made are stored in Google account histories. Unfortunately for users who do not want the option, there is no opt-out possibility, so either ignore the icons near the results or simply log out and not see them at all.

SearchWiki will not, however, be an easy way to provide search engine optimization. While indeed you can move a page to the top position of a search query, the feature only affects that one particular user, with no influence on anyone else’s search results.

There is however one way to reach out and touch someone with your modifications: there is a link at the bottom of the search page which allows a user to see what changes all other users have operated to that one particular query. The only downside is that not only your actions, but also your notes will be visible to other users (whether you care to or not) which is sure to raise some privacy issues. Not everyone may be aware of the fact that the comments can be seen and may leave more personal notes. There’s also the issue of spam, as this author has already seen the comment system abused that way.

Studies have shown that 40% of all searches are duplicate queries – that is queries that have been made at least once before – in which case having a customized page of results for issues you often need to check on may be very helpful.

What everyone has been wondering about the system since before it was publicly implemented is whether Google’s search algorithm will be influenced by user input from SearchWiki’s votes and notes. Google has not specified an intention to use search customization to influence website rankings, it’s clear that the input could well be used to help Google understand better what people find relevant and valuable in a search. In fact SearchWiki’s results are almost certain to make it into the algorithm once Google has found a certain way to keep search engine optimization firms from using it to tamper with search results.