The ability to block web sites from search results disappeared when Google’s new Search Plus personalized results format launched this week. Blocking was a feature added with great fanfare last year. Google says it will return, but the timing is uncertain.

How Blocking Worked

Previously, search results had a “Block All” link that appeared below them:

Selecting that option would cause all pages from the site you blocked to be dropped from your future search results. This option no longer appears.

Return Of Blocking Will Take “Some Time”

We noticed the feature had been dropped earlier this week. Google told us this was a bug, and that they are working on a fix:

We’re still in the process of rolling out Search plus Your World, and we’re also in the process of restoring the block sites feature for users experiencing difficulties.

That’s what we received on Tuesday, and it sounded fairly positive, a short-term problem. But on Thursday, Google Operating System was told:

The right people are looking at what needs to happen to re-enable this, but it might take some time.

Response To Relevancy Complaints

Google released the feature last March, following up on a feature released last February that previously let anyone block sites, but only if they used Google Chrome.

Both came about in the wake of criticisms that Google’s relevancy had decreased, criticisms so severe that Google addressed the issue last January on its official blog. The ability to block sites, along with Google’s Panda Update, were part of that response.

By the way, the Google cached pages link has NOT been removed. Some people have mistakenly thought this in the past few weeks. It was simply moved into the page preview area.

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