This week in search 5/7/10

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week was a big one for search. We announced a number of new enhancements:

A new look for Google
By now, you've probably noticed Google has a fresh look and feel. This week, we announced a new contextually relevant left-hand panel on the search results page that brings together all of the most relevant search tools and refinements for your particular query. It makes navigation quick and easy — you can seamlessly jump to and from different types of results, from Books to Images to News, or dig deeper by narrowing down results by time or topic. The new “Something different” feature at the bottom of the left-hand panel helps you find other topics that are related to your query, broadening the possibilities for your search. In addition to this new navigation, we also slightly changed our logo, which is now brighter, simpler and overall more modern.

Ultimately, this latest evolution of Google makes it much easier to pinpoint more precisely what you’re looking for. We hope you're as excited as we are about these new changes!

Sites with images feature
Having more information upfront can be helpful in choosing the best webpages to visit, particularly when you're searching sites rich with images. So this week, we introduced a new way to view search results for sites with lots of images. Each result will now include a strip of images from the website, so you can get a better preview of what each page has to offer. To enable this new feature, simply do your image-focused query on Google, click on "more search tools" in the left-hand navigation, and then click on "sites with images." You'll notice the search results page completely transforms.

Example searches: [orchids] and [salt ponds]

Translate with Google Goggles
We launched Google Goggles in December as a new way to search by sight, with your mobile phone's camera. From identifying landmarks, books, artwork — even wine bottle labels — Goggles is an interesting tool for expressing your queries beyond just text. This week, we released a new version of Goggles with translation capabilities built in. To use it, point your phone's camera at a foreign word or phrase and use the "region of interest button" to draw a box around specific words. After Goggles detects the text, select the source and destination languages and press the "translate" button. To use this, you'll need Google Goggles v1.1 on an Android device that's running version 1.6 and higher.

We hope that you enjoy the features we launched this week, and that they make your search experience even better.

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management, Search

This week in search 5/1/10

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week we announced a number of new search enhancements:

Brand refinements in search results
Sometimes when searching for product information on Google, you may not know some of the brand names relevant to your particular search. For example, if you're taking on a new river-rafting hobby, it's quite likely you don't have a clue about kayak manufacturers just yet. So, we wanted to make it easier for you to find the brands other people consider useful for popular product searches. So this week we launched a search refinement that calls out brand names related to your query in a single line above the rest of the results. Determined algorithmically, these highlighted brand names may help you find what you're looking for faster, and make your research and shopping experience all the more enjoyable.

Example searches: [wedding dress], [digital camera] and [stroller]

Virtual keyboards in Google search
Typing a search query on a keyboard that is not designed for your language can be a challenging (if not impossible) process. To help overcome any difficulty you might face when using Google search in another language, starting this week you'll see a small keyboard icon next to the search field on both the Google homepage and on the search results page when using Google in one of 35 foreign languages. Check out our announcement, which includes all of the languages currently supported. We hope that this new feature will make your search experience much better!

Example keyboard search in Greek: [flowers]

"Similar" pages on results page
Here's a new feature that makes it easier to discover the variety of choices available on the web. We've offered the "Similar" link on search results for a while now as a way to find new websites similar to ones you already use and like, but it hasn't been too visible. Now, for queries where we think sites similar to the first search result might be helpful, a small block of similar sites will appear at the bottom of the results page. Clicking on the "Pages similar to" link at the start of the block will take you to the full list of similar pages.


More example searches: [american lung association], [tobacco-free kids], [earthquake info center]

New Image Search for iPhone and Android devices
When searching for images on your mobile device, speed and quantity of the images are important parts of a good experience. So we've introduced a redesigned Google Image Search for mobile, based on iPhone 3.0+ and Android 2.1 devices that makes it easier for you to see as many images as possible when searching on your mobile phone. Now, the thumbnails are square to maximize the number of images you see on the screen. In addition, you can swipe to see the next or previous page of results. And for when you want to see a larger version of an image, we've introduced a special image viewing page with black background that both emphasizes the image and includes fading buttons. We hope you enjoy!

Visit google.com on your iPhone or Android device and tap on "Images" for these examples: [mount rushmore] or [lady gaga]

Mobile Place Pages
We launched Place Pages last fall to help provide relevant and informative information about places on Google Maps. We've now optimized that same experience for Android-powered devices and iPhones in the U.S., so when you're on the go, you'll be able to quickly view location information, customer ratings, hours of operation and summarized restaurant reviews. You can also get full-screen, dynamic maps to quickly help you see where the restaurant is within the neighborhood you're in.

Stay tuned for next week's post on the latest releases, enhancements and news about search.

Posted by Jen Fitzpatrick, VP, Engineering

This week in search 4/23/10

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week we announced a number of new developments:

Search for specific TV show episodes
As more and more full-length content is going online, we're making it easier to find the content you want by providing a more structured experience when you search for TV shows. This week, we launched a way to search for specific TV show episodes as part of this effort. Now, when you search for your favorite TV show in Google Videos, check the lefthand toolbar for “Episodes”. By clicking on the links in the Search Options panel, you can browse by season to see all episodes, and drill down to see all sources for a specific episode.


Example searches: [desperate housewives] and [the simpsons]

Image support for RSS gadgets
For many of you who use iGoogle as your homepage, RSS feeds are a great way to get the latest news content, blog updates, recipes and celebrity gossip. And because pictures enhance the online experience, this week we added image support to our iGoogle feed gadgets for people in the U.S. We now support "Slideshow view" as well as "Headline and lead story view." You should notice the change now on your iGoogle page, and you will be able to edit the display setting of each feed by choosing "Edit settings" in the dropdown menu for your feeds.

Slideshow view

Headline and lead story view

Example feeds: [CNN], [the economist], [entertainment weekly], [national geographic]

Google Places
Also this week we announced that the Local Business Center is becoming Google Places. With one out of five searches on Google related to location, we wanted to better connect Place Pages (which launched last September for more than 50 million places globally) to a tool that enables businesses to manage their Google presence. With this change, business owners will benefit from several new ways to expand their online presence, while making it easier for you to make better decisions about local shopping. From real-time coupon updates to interior photos of businesses on place pages, these ongoing enhancements will make local search all the more useful to you. The launch of Google Places is just the beginning of Google becoming more local. If you're a business owner and want to learn more, check out google.com/places.

Example place page: [mission mountain winery]

Hope you enjoy this week's features. Stay tuned for what's next!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

This week in search 4/16/10

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Rich Snippets for recipes
Rich Snippets are the brief annotations you see beneath search results that summarize what's on a webpage. In addition to Rich Snippets for reviews, people, video and events, this week we unveiled a new Rich Snippets format for recipes. This means that when your search results include sites with recipe content, you might see quick facts pertaining to the recipe in your search results, like preparation or cooking times, right on the search results page.

If you have a site with recipes and want to be sure Rich Snippets show up in search results for your page, check out our documentation on how to mark up recipe information as well as our general help articles on Rich Snippets. Bon appétit!

Example search: [baked ziti]

Enhancements to real-time search
This week, we launched a new feature in real-time search that gives you the ability to search and replay the public archive of tweets on Twitter. While real-time search usually focuses on what's happening now, our new feature is helpful for viewing the history of what happened in the past and how people reacted to a particular topic on Twitter. You can zoom into any point in time — from a year, to a month, to a half-hour — and "replay" tweets from as far back as February 11, 2010 (and soon, as far back as the very first tweet on March 21, 2006). To try this feature out, click “Show options” on the search results page, and then select “Updates.” You'll notice a new chart at the top of the page, where you'll be able to adjust the time range of the tweets you'd like to see. We hope you enjoy your trip down the 140-character memory lane.

Example search: [museum of modern art]

Oftentimes, there's great new content published to the web that everyone is talking about at one particular time. So, to help you find those sites, we also recently launched the top links for a set of update results, showcasing some of the top URLs that Twitter users are talking about based on a particular query. To view these links, click “Show options” on the search results page, and then select “Updates.” You'll see a list of links on the right-hand side based on your query.

Example search: [ipad]

Google Suggest and spell correction enhancements
We've recently made some enhancements that make it easier and faster for you to get the most relevant answer using Google search. We've begun to tailor Suggest to U.S. metro areas, so you'll find that the suggested queries are more locally relevant than they used to be. Try searching for [parks in], and you'll most likely see suggested search queries for parks that really are in your neck of the woods.

In addition, we've improved our spelling correction feature. Sometimes, when you search for something that we're highly confident you've misspelled, we'll take you directly to the search results page for the correct spelling without asking "Did you mean...?" This week, we made this feature available in 31 languages across over 180 domains across the globe. We've also made some changes to how this feature deals with misspelled names. We realized that often when you search for a person's name, you include descriptive words (say, the person's profession or company) that can provide valuable context. We use these extra descriptors to offer you better suggestions, so you should soon find this feature for names more useful.

Example search: [yuri lehner stanford]

Stay tuned for more updates next week.

Posted by Gabriel Stricker, Director, Global Communications & Public Affairs

This week in search 4/9/10

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Here's what's happening this week in search:

Site speed in web search ranking
We made an announcement today about site speed and how it effects our search ranking algorithms. Check out the Webmaster Central blog for more information, including a number of free tools that you can use to increase the speed of your website.

Stars in mobile search
In early March, we announced stars in search, a feature that helps you mark and rediscover great content on the web. Recently, we extended this functionality to your mobile phone, so that you're able to view that same favorite content on the go. So, if you'd previously starred sites for [cheesecake recipe] when planning a meal at home, searching for [cheesecake recipe] on your phone in the supermarket will help you rediscover the recipe search results that looked enticing — no need to make a grocery list. Stars work both ways, so if you mark a search result while on your phone, you'll be able to see it later when you get to your desktop. This feature is currently supported on Android phones, iPhones/iPods and Palm WebOS devices in the U.S., and you need to be logged into your Google account for it to work.

Updates to Google Quick Scroll
In December we launched Google Quick Scroll, an extension for Chrome which uses Google's search capabilities to help you jump directly to the portion of the page that's relevant to your search query. Since December, we've brought Quick Scroll to all the languages and domains where Chrome extensions are available. We've also continued to make constant improvements to the tool, and recently we debuted a new version with a few useful updates.

Since Quick Scroll is all about getting you to information fast, it's important that it appear quickly. So we've reduced the time it takes for the tool to pop up so you don't have to wait as long. Also, if you've been using Quick Scroll for a while, you know that it doesn't appear for every result — just when Google detects that only a portion of the page is relevant to your query. Now, even if Quick Scroll doesn't appear after you click on a search result, an icon will show up in the address bar. Clicking on the icon will pop up the Quick Scroll box with an explanation of why it didn't trigger on that page.

Here's what it looks like:

Help for those who need it
A few months ago, we introduced a search feature that displays the toll-free U.S. poison control number when you search for related information. This got us thinking about other ways we can help people get clear information from Google search in times of crisis or distress. So we recently launched a feature that displays the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at the top of the results page for certain search queries in the U.S. We hope this quick access to information helps people in emotional distress who may benefit from calling a suicide prevention hotline.

Stay tuned for more updates next week.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow

This week in search 3/26/10

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week we're highlighting a few recent internationalization projects, as well as some improvements to the way you conduct your searches. Here's a summary.

Improved Google Suggest interface & internationalization
In 2008, we launched Google Suggest to help you formulate queries, reduce spelling errors and save keystrokes. Since then, we've made a number of visual changes to Suggest for English-speaking users of google.com, including:

• Boldface search suggestions to make it faster to scan the list of suggestions and find what you're looking for
• Adding the "Google Search" and "I'm Feeling Lucky" buttons to the box so they're still accessible even when the Suggest box is open
• Removing the result counts, which previewed the number of results for each search, to simplify your experience

Given the popularity of these changes, we've just rolled them out in 50 languages across all 170 domains where Google Suggest is available. No matter where you are, we hope you find that Suggest is now faster and easier to use.

Real-time search in more languages
As you've probably noticed, our search results page for Google.com in English now includes a dynamic stream of real-time content from popular sites like Facebook, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca, MySpace and Twitter. Since we launched real-time search, we've continued to make significant improvements in the relevance technology. As of today, real-time search is available in 40 languages. Now when you're visiting family in Puerto Rico, or if you speak German and live in Switzerland, you'll be able to see live updates from people on these popular sites as well as news headlines and blog posts published just seconds before.

Refinements for local searches
Whether you're looking for info close to home or while you're traveling, it's now easier to find things to do in the cities you're searching for on Google. Now when you search for a city name, we'll show you popular query refinements for places in those cities. We've found that people like to explore several places during a trip, so when we show one point of interest, we'll also show you related points of interest. For instance, if you're looking for food or a place to stay, you'll also see some of the top category and neighborhood refinements to help you choose a place. This new feature will be rolling out over the next couple days for 200 U.S. cities, and in the coming weeks we'll expand coverage to more cities internationally.

Example searches: [maui], [pikes place market] and [restaurants berkeley california]


Lists in Bookmarks
This week we introduced lists in Google Bookmarks, an experimental feature that helps you easily share sites with friends. With lists, you can sort and categorize your Google Bookmarks or starred search results. Once you've created a list, you can share it with specific friends or make it publicly visible and searchable (lists are private by default). Based on the content of your list, we'll also generate suggestions for related links, so you can discover more helpful info related to a list you're already building. We’re launching lists as an experimental feature, and it is available at www.google.com/bookmarks or by clicking the "Starred results" link on your search results page. From there, select the links you want to share and click “Copy to list.”

Example lists: [welcome to lists] and [seattle sites]


Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more search improvements next week.

Posted by Ben Gomes, Distinguished Engineer

This week in search 3/15/10

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs weekly. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week's enhancements include:

Locking SafeSearch now in 39 languages
Last November, we announced the option to password protect your SafeSearch setting and filter out sexually explicit web sites and images from your search results. While no filter is 100% accurate, SafeSearch Lock helps you avoid content you may prefer not to see or would rather your children did not stumble across. We're pleased to roll this out globally in 39 more languages. It's easy to set your preference, and once you do, you'll see a visible change to your search page. Even from across the room, you'll be able to see bright colored balls on the top of the screen. Check out this video to learn more.

Microdata support for Rich Snippets
HTML (hypertext markup language) is the core language of the web. And since it was created, HTML5 has become the fifth major revision of HTML. What's different about HTML5? The specification includes a description of microdata, a new markup standard for specifying structured information within web pages. Paritcularly of interest to webmasters, this week we were excited to announce support for microdata for use in rich snippets in addition to our existing support for microformats and RDFa.

By using microdata markup when web pages are created, you can specify reviews, people profiles, or events information on your web pages that Google may use to improve their presentation in Google search results.

To learn more about rich snippets and microdata support, here are some links:

• Rich snippets documentation
• Overview of microdata
• Official microdata specification
• Rich snippets testing tool

Stay tuned for next week's post on launches, more enhancements and news about search.

Posted by Jen Fitzpatrick, VP, Engineering

This week in search 3/7/10

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs weekly. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week's enhancements include:

Stars in search
Every day, we work to improve the four key components of search: comprehensiveness, latency, user experience and relevance. Of these, relevance is dramatically enhanced by more personalized results. This week, we announced a new feature that makes it much easier to mark and rediscover your favorite content. Stars in search are just like the stars you see in Google Toolbar or in Maps — they act like bookmarks. When you star a search result, and it happens to appear again in future results, you'll see that you already found that particular result. Starred items will appear at the top of your results. Stars in search has been rolling out this week, and will be available globally for all users who are signed in to their Google account.

Auto-spell for images
This week, we unveiled automatic spell correction for images. In cases where we're highly confident you had intended to type something else, we'll replace results from the typo query with those from the spell-corrected version — just like when you misspell a query in Google search. Ultimately, this change will reduce the time it takes to get you the result you're looking for (and that's a good thing).

Example searches: [butterflys], [roman architecture] and [apollo ohno]

Sidewiki page owner entry
In September, we launched Sidewiki, which lets you contribute helpful information to any webpage using a sidebar in Google Toolbar or a Chrome extension. Afterward, webmasters asked, "How can I quickly put Sidewiki on all pages of my site?" Now webmasters can create a special entry, called a page owner entry, that appears above all entries written by users. Webmaster tool improvements ultimately create a better web experience for us all, so we're pleased about this. Let us know what you think about our webmaster enhancements.



Stay tuned for next week's news on more search launches.

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management, Search

This week in search 2/28/10

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs weekly. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week, we had a number of exciting announcements:

Refine your searches by location
Location can tremendously aid the way you search, so we were pleased to add the ability to refine your searches by location to the Search Options panel. Say you're big on the outdoors and want to find bike rental information, bicycling blogs or the closest sporting goods store. There's a good chance you're looking for information that's relevant to your region, city or even a city you're visiting on vacation. That's where this tool can help. One of the really useful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don't have to worry about adding a city name (e.g., "Berkeley") to your query and missing webpages that are in a similar region (e.g., "East Bay", "Oakland") but might not specifically mention the city in your search.

Example search: [bike stores] - Click on "Show options" to adjust the location. You can narrow the location down to near you, the city you're in, the region or state. You can also select "Custom Location" and enter it directly.

Fetch as Googlebot Mobile added to Webmaster Tools Labs
Last October, we launched Webmaster Tools Labs, and it has been a huge success. Malware Details have helped thousands of users identify pages on their site that may be infected with malicious code, and Fetch as Googlebot has given users more insight into our crawler. Today, we're happy to introduce an additional Labs feature to our line-up: the ability to fetch pages as Googlebot-Mobile.

This was a common request from users with mobile-specific sites, and we thought it was a great idea. We have two mobile options: cHTML (primarily used for Japanese sites) and XHTML/WML. We're excited to bring you this feature based on your feedback, and we look forward to launching more of them in future. Let us know what you think!


Facebook in real-time search
Starting this week we added Facebook content to real-time search in the U.S. Real-time search, which we launched in December, helps you tap into the most relevant, freshest search results on the web, many of which are just seconds old. With this latest addition, you can access the news, photos and blog posts that Facebook fan pages publish to the world. You can find the Facebook Pages updates in our real-time mode by clicking on "Show Options" and then "Latest" or "Updates."

Example search: [facebook]

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more next week!

Posted by Gabriel Stricker, Director, Global Communications & Public Affairs

This week in search 2/21/10

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs weekly. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week, real-time search took center stage, along with a surging interest in the Winter Games in Vancouver.

Real-time search in Russia and Japan
Since the release of real-time search in December, we've seen that finding real-time content — often the only source of online information at the time — can be quite profound. For example, recently when California experienced a few earthquakes, real-time content appeared in search results just seconds after the ground shook. As you can imagine, getting this functionality out to the rest of the world has been a top priority. Because of this, we recently launched real-time search with Russian and Japanese, the first of the languages we plan to support. We want to bring you this functionality globally, so stay tuned as we add more countries.

MySpace in real time
Also in real-time news, starting this week we officially added MySpace content to real-time search. Now you can tap into the pool of news, photos and blog posts that MySpace users have chosen to publish to the world. These updates are all ranked to reflect the most relevant, freshest results, many of which are just seconds old. In all, real-time search includes more than a billion documents and processes hundreds of millions of changes daily. We're quite excited to offer this enhancement so that real-time search becomes even more useful. You can find the MySpace updates in our real-time mode by clicking on "Show Options" and then "Updates."

Example search: [myspace]

Better site searches for Images
Based on feedback from users and webmasters, we have improved the [site:] operator for Google Images. In the past, the [site:] operator filtered based on the image URL, not based on the URL of web pages linking to the images. Now, the operator will run your search over web sites that include images, no matter where the images themselves are hosted, which removes a lot of noise from your results and gives you more control over what you're searching for.

Example searches: [site:digg.com space shuttle], [site:morbidanatomy.blogspot.com], [site:flickr.com/photos/polvero]

Trends in searching for the Winter Games
It's been a week since the Winter Games in Vancouver began, and it's clear you have great interest in finding out more about the games. From women's downhill to curling rules, we've seen searches rise as people everywhere watch the quest for gold. Check out Google Trends to see what's of greatest interest now.

Hope you enjoyed this week's features. Stay tuned for what's next!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience