Updated on January 15, 2020 Google logs all of your search history, plain and simple. If you want to use any of the company’s services, such as You. Tube, Gmail, and Google Maps, and have those services personalized, you must be signed in with a Google account.
The logs contain your IP address, search terms, the date and time of the visit, and other information that can be used to identify you and your browsing habits. Google keeps these logs forever, basically, although it does promise to partially anonymize the logs after a period of time to protect your privacy.
While we were writing we ran into the query “Does Google Keep a record of my Search history?”.
One article stated that every time you make a Google search, check your Gmail or watch a You. Tube video, Google records your visit in its server logs. The logs contain your IP address, search terms, the date and time of the visit, and other information that can be used to identify you and your browsing habits.
I found the answer was if your browser or device doesn’t have one already, Google will give it a unique cookie so it can anonymously keep track of your activity on Google sites as long as that cookie is set. Google logs all of your search history, plain and simple.
We all secretly suspect that when we delete something from the internet, it’s not really gone. Well unfortunately, for those who have skeletons in their search engine history closet, Google keeps a full record of every search you have ever made- removed searches and all.
Whenever you execute a Google search on any device that you are logged into with your Google account – such as an Android Smartphone that you are logged into or an instance of Google Chrome on a computer that you are logged into – Google, by default, saves the search to its servers.
Can Google track your search history if you log out?
No, since you’re already logged out of your Google account, it can’t track your search history the next time you browse the web only after if you have clear/delete cookies in your browser settings (you use Chrome, i presume). The old record of your search history is stored in Google server and in your Google account setting.
How long does google keep search history?
These days Google has a better answer but it continues to save all that data. Yes, Google will tell people that it removes data after 18 months but that is not strictly true. It removes the data that can be used to easily identify a person but the rest of the data is kept. Google says it keeps the data to help advertisers with behavioral targeting.
You should be asking “How long does Google Keep Your History?”
Starting with location history plus web and app activity, Google is planning to cleanse itself of people’s history. Users can pick a time limit – of either three or 18 months – for how long this information can be kept by Google. Anything older than 18 months will automatically be deleted .
Google logs an astonishing amount of data, including the search logs from its flagship product. It keeps this data indefinitely, so searching for a combination of yourwife’sname and youraddress and “rat poison in her cereal” is not a particularly smart idea (though search users do this sort of thing anyway ).
Is your Google history completely deleted?
Think again… We all secretly suspect that when we delete something from the internet, it’s not really gone. Well unfortunately, for those who have skeletons in their search engine history closet, Google keeps a full record of every search you have ever made- removed searches and all.
Does Google delete your data after 18 months?
Yes, Google will tell people that it removes data after 18 months but that is not strictly true. It removes the data that can be used to easily identify a person but the rest of the data is kept. Google says it keeps the data to help advertisers with behavioral targeting.