Google rolled out a new feature for its search engine that lets users block out links to domains in future query results. When a searcher returns to Google after looking at a Web page, there will be a new link next to “cached” that reads “Block all example.com results,” according to the Google Blog. Clicking it alerts the search engine to omit that domain name for all future searches carried out by that user. “You’ve probably had the experience where you’ve clicked a result and it wasn’t quite what you were looking for,” Amay Champaneria and Beverly Yang wrote in the post. “Many times you’ll head right back to Google. Perhaps the result just wasn’t quite right, but sometimes you may dislike the site in general, whether it’s offensive, pornographic or of generally low quality. For times like these, you’ll start seeing a new option to block particular domains from your future search results.” The feature could have further implications for rankings in the search engine’s algorithm. “While we’re not currently using the domains people block as a signal in ranking, we’ll look at the data and see whether it would be useful as we continue to evaluate and improve our search results in the future,” according to the post.
