My son is creative. He’s 4 years old. He’s a wizard on the computer already. I was curious about the kind of art software that might be out there, that could be stimulating for him (he’s tired of Noggin.com - it was bound to happen). Today I Googled “art programs” and got a customized result. Ok, so maybe my query wasn’t tuned the best for my specific need - I wound up with online art schools and online education sites. Not bad results on their own, but I was surprised to see the little note Google posted in the SERP:
note: image was altered to fit the width of my blog
So this result got me thinking. It said “customized for the metro Philly area”. Interesting, except my actual location this time was outside of Philadelphia, in Reading, Pennsylvania - Berks County, not Philadelphia. I’m not exactly sure how the geo-tracking works in this case, other than the obvious IP tracking which was showing as a neighboring town when I looked. Again, not Philadelphia. SEO and IP aside, I just started to wonder about whether this was a good idea at all.
I wasn’t logged in. I wasn’t asking for personalized search. What if I didn’t want an art program in the Philadelphia area? What if I was open to any location? Granted, these results really didn’t seem that customized to Philly this time around, but how far can Google take this?
I’d prefer some parametric buttons that would let me choose customized results to my location, instead of just having it be “on”.
