Getting to the why behind Google's SearchWiki

When Google launched SearchWiki, a new tool that lets users edit and mark up their Google search results, the company said its aim was to let users tailor their search results for their own specific needs, making the results more useful in the long run. But as with everything Google, there's another side to the story.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington is none too enamored with the new Google Search look, and especially the inability to turn it off and go back to "regular" Google searches. As he says:

This new stuff is a mess of arrows and troll comments and stuff moving around the page. That doesn’t make my search experience more useful. It makes it move to another search engine.

He guesses that Google made the change to get more data on searches and try to improve the overall experience. But Google Watch's Clint Boulton says the actual reason may be to (eventually) make even more money via search. When it comes down to it, SearchWiki is just a way to create bookmarks for frequently visited sites, but inside Google itself, he says.

That's Google's genius stroke; we believe SearchWiki is letting us control our search destiny, but Google gets to keep putting up more search ads in front of us. Google wants us to find what we're looking for, and now it has provided a way to keep us in Google.com to do so.

So, what's your take? Is SearchWiki a Google trick or treat?