Attempts at personalising search results have been evident amongst many of the larger search engines for the past few years. Engines previously provided search results more closely tied to your location and after this, Bing particularly updated the search functionality so that it would “re-find” those websites you had previously visited.
According to a recent blog on the Bing community however, the Microsoft search engine is keen to “take personalisation to the next level” with what they are calling “adaptive search”. Adaptive search uses your search history to identify specific genres or subjects you may be interested in when searching and then adapting the search results to suit.
The feature can be best described through a simple example. Take tow Bing users, one who spends a lot of time searching for and using travel related websites and the other who spends their time crawling entertainment and film websites. When the first enters the search term “Australia” they are likely to be presented with travel information, the latter however entering the same search term will be presented with information about the film starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.
According to the post, this is because Bing has adapted the information to the user, hopefully presenting them with search results more relevant to their interests. Whilst there is no news as to when this feature will roll out in the UK, it is expected in the US over the next few days.
