Google announced you can now, once again, block sites from showing up in your Google search results.
This is an expansion of the Chrome personal blocklist extension, which is rolling out to all Google users. I should say, this is not the first time Google has had this feature. They had it most recently with a Chrome extension, in 2009 with SearchWiki and as early as 2005 for personalized results. So now Google is bringing it back.
How does it work now? (note, click on any of the images to see full size)
(1) See a result in Google and click on it:
(2) Go back from the result you clicked on to Google and Google adds "block this result":
(3) Mouse over the link and you will see this:
(4) Then click on the link and it goes poof, like an Apple effect:
(5) Then it shows you what you have done...
(6) If you go back to a set of search results that would have had results from the site you blocked, it will tell you:
(7) Showing the results does this:
(8) Finally, you can manage the blocked sites on a special Google page:
SEO Impact:
I should add that Google will be looking at the sites people block. Will it come into play with rankings. Yes, in some ways. But I wouldn't expect it to be easily gamed because Google may just use the data abstractly then as a pure ranking signal. Just my early thoughts.
Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums.
