Google Inc. has expanded beyond a one-size-fits-all view of Web search to tie together its efforts to offer personalized Web searches under the iGoogle brand, officials said Monday.In recent weeks, the Web search leader has introduced a variety of new customization features to its basic personalized home page, first introduced two years ago, which links users to thousands of regularly updated, optional features on one page.
New features include a choice of themes with custom colors that users of Google's (Charts, Fortune 500) personalized home page can select. Google also introduced the ability for users to refer back to their personal Web search history over the past several years.
"We are working to bring all this together," Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president in charge of search and user experience, told reporters during a briefing at the Googleplex, the company's Silicon Valley headquarters.
"iGoogle refers to what we formerly called the Google Personalized Home Page and the ecosystem we are building with thousands of gadgets [optional features] on your home page," Mayer said in an interview on the sidelines of the briefing.
As part of its effort to render more personally relevant Web search results, Google said Monday it has introduced a geographic aspect to search results based on the location that individual users select as their home location on Google Maps.
Web history is an optional feature and only available to users who have signed up and given permission to Google to track their Web surfing activity.
The new personalization features will begin to appear on Google user pages starting at midnight California time Monday.
