Was This Recent Google Test a Peek Into the Future?

If organic search traffic is an important source of leads and sales for your business, you might be interested to know that on Friday May 26th, Google was experimenting with new features and new layouts for their search engine.

If you Googled anything that day, you might have noticed that things looked different.

One of the features they were trying out was a Personal filter. This is something brand new that's never been implemented before.

Basically, it lets you use Google to conveniently search through your personal stuff that you're storing through Google products.

It searches things like Google Drive documents and Gmail messages.

You had to be logged into a Google account to see and use it.

While a Personal filter might not be a huge development for SEO, it points to something deeper: Google's switching things up in the near future, adding features and possibly changing their interface.

This could include other changes that do have an impact on search rankings.

Search Engine Land reported the news, including a screenshot of what it looked like.

This past Friday, Google was displaying a new filter in the main Google search tools for showing personal results only. This feature was live for anyone with a personal Google account who was signed in while doing searches.

Here is a screen shot of the feature:

[image source: Search Engine Land]
When you selected the “Personal” drop-down option under the search tools, Google would then filter to show you your emails, photos, flights and other personal data related to your query in the Google search results.