When you are Googling... (What Google doesn't want you to know about)

When you start a query in Google.com, the website creates a serial number to record this query, including your IP address and your searching keyword. If you are logged in with your Google account, the keyword will be saved with your account. So Google knows all your searching history, and it knows your history and your recent activity in real life.

This is not the end of story yet. After the searching, you browse through the results and short description, decide to click number 4th link of the result. Google creates a hidden query to send the serial number kEI="aE5ER_7xA6T2gQKJ0szoDA" and the item number cd=4 to the server so that Google knows what you are really interested in, from the link you click.

When you move mouse over an item of search result, from the status bar you can see the link of that item. But when you click it, the webpage activates a Javascript program to report the item you clicked before it navigates to the link. If you ever use Yahoo, you can see something different: Moving mouse over an item of Yahoo search result will shows a link like "http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkxx7Nk1Hc_gAIwdXNy...", so you have a very clear idea that Yahoo will process the click (save your click history) before forwarding to the searched item. They both save your search history and click history to know what pages you are interested to improve their search result and advertisement. Yahoo is like a "real bad guy" because it tells you that, but Google is like a "fake good guy" because it tries to hide the truth.


PS: Today (Feb 18) when I was reading Google News, I saw a new "Recommended for you" section:

That is what I am talking about.