It's funny that the people who seem to hate Google the most, are the ones who give them the most free publicity. I'm not sure how this will affect SEO, but I just found this and thought it was an interesting read:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/18...ct-competitor/

It seems Google has launched a direct competitor to Stumble Upon, although "direct competitor" is a dramatic way of saying "a button on their toolbar." Google is making their toolbar take you to a random site they think you'll like based on your past searches. There's debate over whether that'll work ( do you search for things you like, maybe hiking trails, or for the phone number of your dentist? ), but another question this brings up is how this will affect people who spend time trying to make their sites more visible to search engines and their users.

My guess is good content and design will be rewarded, and the importance of links ( and anchor text ) will go down. I also think this has a lot to do with personal search. Any thoughts on the matter?

You can only use this feature if you are signed into your Google account (if you have one). Do you reckon this is an incentive to get more people to use a Google account so they can track their surfing habits? I wouldn't be surprised.

At the point you click the dice Google has your web history, the search term you originally typed and also information about the page you are on so maybe the next page you are randomly taken to would be a good choice. Interesting idea.

It's an interesting idea for sure. And Stumble Upon is highly popular. I've used it a bit myself; after it started showing up in my referrer logs I felt like I had to. After you check off boxes telling them what types of content you like, they try to introduce you to new sites built around your interests.

I wonder if Google wants to test their algorithms? They already have a great deal of info on all of us, I have stories from The Economist and The Onion on my Google home page, and they've shown themselves to be pretty good at sorting through heaps of data in the past.

But then people search for things they aren't particularly interested in all the time, so maybe this is helping them figure out whether they can tell the difference? When I do searches for "General network error" and "Mt Ranier road closures" I'm interested in both of them while I type out the query ... but SQL errors don't hold my interest after I solve them.

Also, I bought into the hype archive instead of deleting my gmail. I say hype because I've been trying to find a particular email from a friend, with a photo of flood damage this past winter, and it's a needle in a haystack. Still, based on keyword scans, Google knows I'm crazy about mountains and camping.

Looking at the link, the story is a month old. This is the first I've heard of it. But then I don't have the Google Toolbar installed. So what this means is that Google really isn't pushing very hard to promote the thing. They don't seem to be bullying the other kids around, like the article says.

Thats a great way for Google to get even more information about you than they already have. I am by no means against collecting information but the day that google has a profile for every surfer is kinda scary.

I doubt if many people would actually use this feature. And even if they do -it is more for random surfers - not really targeted traffic.
If you are in a buying mood you would still actively search for something.