Google Adds Site Blocking Feature to it's Search Engine

Google has rolled out a new feature to allow users of its Search Engine to block shady sites from appearing in search results.

Google is ceding some control to its users in the company's ongoing effort to improve the quality of its search results. Google announced a new site blocking tool to help users weed out unwanted sites from continually popping up in their search results.

If users find a site displayed in the search results to be worthless, offensive or total waste of time, they can return to the search page where Google will display an option to block the site from ever again appearing in the search results.

Users will require to have a Google account and be logged in, in order to use the feature.




Once a site is blocked users can immediately undo the block or use their account settings to manage their blocked sites. The blocked site manager page includes an options to manually insert websites to be blocked. If a site would have appeared following a search but didn't because it had been previously blocked, Google will display a notice indicating that the search result contains a blocked site.

Google's quest to weed out low quality sites and content firms began in February with an overhaul of the algorithm that powers its Search Engine. While Google says it won't be initially using data on the sites that are routinely blocked, it hasn't ruled out such a move in the future to improve the quality of it's search result.

Google had launched the site blocking feature last month as a part of the Chrome browser extension, its now available for Google Search in English for people using Chrome 9+, IE 8+ and Firefox 3.5+.