This week in search 10/16/10

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.

Search is always evolving, and we’re excited to share the latest this week—from Google Autocomplete to our fun homepage doodles—as well as a glimpse at what the U.S. is searching for. Here’s this week’s round up of updates:

A birthday surprise
Because doodles are such a fun part of the search experience, we thought we’d share a fun little way Google will help celebrate your birthday. When you include your date of birth on your Google profile, you may notice a special treat on the Google homepage on your birthday (be sure to sign in). Click on the doodle for another birthday surprise!

Renaming Google Suggest
We first launched Google Suggest in 2004 in Labs to help people enter their searches faster. Suggest has been a very popular feature, and some people have been asking what happened to it. Never fear, it hasn’t gone anywhere—we just renamed it to “Google Autocomplete.” As part of our launch of Google Instant, we thought "Autocomplete" fit better with the new functionality—automatic queries and automatic results.

Google Instant in new countries across Asia
We’ve been rapidly expanding Google Instant around the globe. Last week we launched Instant in Australia, India, Korea, New Zealand and Singapore. Now that it’s been a few weeks since our initial release, we’ve been finding that people are really learning how to get the most out of Instant. For example, in just two weeks, we saw an increase in the fraction of searches performed without hitting enter or clicking search. This is a very demanding launch for our infrastructure and we’re expanding around the globe as soon as we can.

Eurostat data in search
We’ve also rolled out some improvements our public data search features. We’ve been working closely with Eurostat to surface some really useful and interesting data about unemployment rates, government debt, minimum wage and broadband penetration across Europe. Try searching for [arbeitslosenstatistik deutschland], [smic france] or [deuda publica españa] to see examples of this data visualisation in action. The data is available across 34 languages. We’ve also internationalized data from the World Bank. You can learn more on our European policy blog.

The week in searches
Curious to know what Google Searches skyrocketed in the U.S. this week? Check out the Google Beat, where you’ll find an inside look into what people are clicking on Google. This week, we cover everything from Columbus Day to Brett Favre and the buzz around “Cigar Guy.”

We hope you find these updates useful. Stay tuned for more next week.

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director, Search Product Management

This week in search 10/8/10

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.

While we’re always working on making search more precise, comprehensiveness and interactive, you can also count on us to bring you enhancements in speed and language. This week, our updates include releases that will help you get the information you’re looking for fast—and in many different languages.

Flu facts in search
Just in time for flu season, we’re again collaborating with the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services (HHS), their flu.gov collaborators and the American Lung Association to help you easily find nearby locations to get the flu vaccine. When searching for flu-related terms, information will appear at the top of your search results, including tips from flu.gov and a flu vaccine finder box with an expanding map that displays locations where you can receive vaccine. You can also visit www.google.com/flushot for the flu vaccine finder. While we’re all hoping for a relatively tame flu season, preparation is always necessary. We hope this enhancement will make it easier.


Example searches: [flu] and [flu shot]

Google Alerts for video now in 40 languages
Google Alerts has been helping English speakers discover new videos related to their interests for years. Last week, we added support for video alerts in 39 additional languages, including Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish. This means that all of you around the world can now monitor the web for new videos, as well as for news, blogs, web results and real-time updates. Visit www.google.com/alerts and try it out.

A new addition to Google Translate
It is with great linguistic pleasure that we’ve added Latin to as an alpha language in Google Translate. Although considered a “dead language” by many, Latin is still studied by hundreds of thousands of students worldwide and is the predecessor to many modern tongues. If you are looking for something to translate, check out our post announcing the feature (written entirely in Latin!). While this may not be popular for translating YouTube captions or emails, we hope it will help unlock the many ancient documents that are written in Latin.

The week in searches
Want to know what was hot on Google Search in the U.S. this week? Check out the Google Beat, where we give you the scoop on what got people clicking on Google. This week, we cover the Rick Sanchez/Jon Stewart comments as well as the buzz around the Ryder Cup golf competition.

We hope you find these updates useful. Stay tuned for more next week.

Posted by Ben Ling, Director of Search Properties

This week in search 9/17/10

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.

From the latest blockbuster films to your favorite TV shows, we recently launched some useful enhancements when you're searching for media. And if you're looking to remember where to go on your next vacation, we've also got you covered.

Here are some of our recent updates:

Director and cast links in movie search results
Have you ever searched for a movie and then wondered who directed or starred in it? This week, we made this process one step faster. Now, you'll see information about the director and starring cast of movies in search results, along with other information like ratings and links to relevant content. The result also gives you the opportunity to click through to a site to get more info about a person with just one click.

This feature is currently available in English and Japanese. Over time, we'll roll this change out in more languages.

New results for TV episodes
As more TV networks begin publishing their shows on sites like fox.com, we’ve noticed that people often turn to Google to find their favorites, whether old episodes of Lost or the latest episode of Glee. Today we’re making it easier than ever to find your favorite television shows by episode or season right on google.com. With our new feature, when you search for a television show, you’ll sometimes see a new section in the search results page called “Episodes for” with videos of the three newest programs we can find. We hope these changes make it easier to find your favorite television shows online, whether to catch up on last night’s episode or to kill some time with an old favorite season.

Example search: [glee] or [family guy]

Stars extended to places in local results
In March we introduced stars in search so that you could mark results and rediscover them later. This week we extended the feature to local results, so now you can star places and get to them later—through a search, on Google Maps or on your phone. For example, if you're planning a trip to Tucson, you might want to go to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum—so you would star the result from your desktop computer. When you arrive in Arizona, you can access the starred item again from the Local tab of google.com using your phone browser or in the Google Maps for mobile application. Since you're signed in with the same account on your desktop computer and phone, the starred items sync automatically. Phone number, address and directions information are just a few clicks away.

Example search: [tucson museum]





This week in search... queries
What are people searching for on Google? We recently introduced a series of videos about U.S. search trends. Check out this week's the Google Beat, for the latest glimpse into the pulse of Google searches.

We hope you find these new updates and enhancements useful. Stay tuned for more next week!

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director of Search Product Management

This week in search 8/27/10

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.

Searches come in many flavors, but it's our job to determine what type of search you're doing once you've clicked your way out of the search box. Whether you're looking for a blog or a business, our goal is to get you the most relevant type of result back to you—fast. Ultimately, it's that combination of relevance and speed that we think will give you the best experience. Here are some of our newest search enhancements:

Improved Blog Search
With the proliferation of specialized blogs all across the web, you'll often find great content on blogs—whether you're planning a trip to Florida, looking to bring home a new golden retriever or learning how to make a delicious Italian dinner. Recently, our blog search team made it much easier to find full blogs about your query, rather than single posts on the topic. This is especially useful if you're looking for bloggers that post on an ongoing basis about the subject of your query. Try it with one of your search queries by clicking "Blogs," then "Homepages," in the left-hand panel of your search results.

Example searches: [tesla car], [google], [android]

A new home for Realtime Search
When we think about relevancy, often what you're looking for may have just happened. It's been more than nine months since we first announced our real-time search features, and this week we gave it a new home at www.google.com/realtime as well as some great new tools to you refine and understand your results. You can use geographic refinements to find updates and news that's happening right near you or in the area of your choice. We also added conversations view, so you can follow a discussion more easily by browsing a full timeline of tweets and seeing how the conversation evolved. And in Google Alerts, you can now create an alert specifically for "updates" to get an email the moment a topic of interest shows up on Twitter or other short-form services.

Realtime Search and updates in Google Alerts are available globally in 40 languages, and the geographic refinements and conversations views are available in English, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

Example search: [egg recall]

More local results in maps and clickable markers
We made some changes to local results in web search that will help you learn more about the results and save you time by saving you clicks. Starting this week, when you search for places we'll show you all of the results that match your query on the map. Results after the first seven will be shown with small circle markers. This can be very useful in identifying the density of stores and helping you find the right neighborhood to visit. For example, when you search for [fabric stores nyc], you can now easily identify the Garment District:

When you see a result on the map that you like, you can now click directly on the marker (the pin or the circle) and go to Google Maps with that place selected and the "Info" window open. The other results will still be there if you want to explore more places.

Example searches: [fabric stores nyc], [coffee in seattle], [resort near ko samui, thailand]

We hope you find these updates useful. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks.

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director, Search Product Management

This week in search 7/25/10

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.

As we seek to expand the most comprehensive search experience on the web, we've made a number of recent enhancements to your search results. Ultimately, what you're looking for isn't limited to text websites; you may be looking for a tweet, a video or a place—and we want to make sure you can find all of it. This week, we've made it easier to find definitions and images.

Dictionary search feature enhancements
When it comes to dictionary-related searches, both content and precision are vital. Recently, we expanded our dictionary search feature to all global English users, giving you quick and easy access to even more useful dictionary information. We added implicit triggering, which means you can simply search for [flummox] and find the definition, you don't have to search for [define flummox] or [what is flummox]. We've also improved the definition result snippet to show more details such as parts of speech and pronunciation. Stay tuned for more enhancements here, including an expanded mobile experience.

Example search: [stupendous]


Our biggest redesign yet for Google Images
Our focus on comprehensiveness extends itself to our other search properties, including Google Images. Over time, Google Images has become a very popular source of visual information. For many of you, Google Images has become a great tool for inspiration, learning, and even shopping. And, today, we've indexed more than 10 billion images -- so you can imagine the depth.

With this in mind, we have introduced a new design for Google Images. You'll now see a dense, tiled layout that makes it easy to view many images—up to 1,000—on a single scrollable page. In addition, we made the thumbnail previews on the results page larger, so all you have to do is hover over an image to get an even larger view. You'll also find more information about the image, and other image-specific features in the thumbnail preview. Once you click an image, you'll be taken to a new landing page that displays a large image directly over the website that hosts the image—so you can instantly learn more about the source and context.

Example search: [sunflowers] or [new york]

We hope you enjoyed this week's changes making your web experience even more comprehensive. Stay tuned for more search enhancements next week.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

This week in search 6/27/10

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.

Speed is a common theme at Google—the notion of speed is baked into all of our products, from Google Chrome to web search. Often, we also simply develop features that help deliver answers fast. Whether by displaying the exact content you're looking for at the top of your search results page or by optimizing the way you search, many of these speed enhancements save you keystrokes—and time.

This week, we released two new features:

Sunrise and Sunset Search feature
Whether you're looking to find the best time for a morning jog or trying to plan that perfect moment for a wedding proposal, knowing exactly when the sun rises or sets can always be helpful. This week, we were happy to launch a Sunrise and Sunset feature for search. It gives the precise times of sunsets and sunrises for any location around the world. Unlike the weather, sunrises and sunsets are quite predictable, and as a result, we don't use a data source. Instead, we calculate sunrise and sunset times based on latitude, longitude and the current time. This calculation has been of interest to astronomers and mathematicians for millennia, so they’ve had time to get it just right. And for most locations, it’s accurate to within a single minute.


Example searches: [sunrise port jefferson ny] or [sunset cancun]

Google Search by Voice expanded to more languages
Google Search by Voice enables people to search the web faster than ever before—getting you answers with fewer keystrokes. This service was originally launched in English, and was offered in the U.S., U.K., India, Australia and New Zealand. We later introduced Japanese and Mandarin to expand the number of possible users. Just a week ago, we launched the service in French, Italian, German and Spanish. Given that local dialects are a factor in the performance of speech recognition, we first launched our service in the four countries most closely associated with these languages: France, Germany, Italy and Spain. This week we followed with Korean and the launch in Taiwan of Traditional Mandarin.



To get started with Google Search by Voice, visit the Google mobile page in your country's domain (for example, in France go to m.google.fr) and download the application for your phone’s operating system in your locale. You'll find this available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry phones. Ultimately, our goal is to bring Google Search by voice to speakers of all languages, so stay tuned for more announcements here.

We'll see you back here next week for more new announcements.

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management, Search

This week in search 6/11/10

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.

One of our goals is to deliver the web content you're looking for as fast as possible. From under-the-hood indexing improvements and small feature enhancements that make search more relevant and intuitive, to directly delivering content to your inbox in your native tongue, all these enhancements are focused on getting you the results you're looking for—fast. Back in December, I wrote here about our efforts in speed, or what we call time-to-result. This week, I'm pleased to revisit this topic and share three new releases from our search teams that showcase the fruits of this focus:

World Cup scores and schedules
This week marked the start of an exciting time for football fans the world over. As many of those fans scour the web for scores and information on the tournament, we want to help organize and present those results as quick and simply as possible. So when you complete a search related to the World Cup, you’ll see live scores, latest results and match schedules at the top of your search results. You’ll also find TV broadcast information and quick links for game recaps, live updates, standings and team profiles. The feature works on all Google search domains in 44 languages, including Afrikaans, Amharic, Swahili and Zulu.


Example searches: [world cup], [world cup spain] and [world cup group g]

Google Alerts in 40 languages
Google Alerts, which we launched in 2003, automatically searches the web to find new information about topics you're interested in and deliver it directly to your inbox. This week, we extended Google Alerts availability to 40 languages, expanding the reach of this helpful product. Google Alerts now supports Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Filipino, Finnish, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. So, for example, if you want to keep up to date with your favorite World Cup footballer, create an alert for his name and new results will be delivered to your inbox. This feature is helpful to English speakers too—try translating your query into other languages to find out what's being talked about around the world.

To get started, visit the alerts page in your country's domain (for example, here's Arabic in Egypt: www.google.com.eg/alerts).

Caffeine indexing system
This week, we announced the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. This new indexing system provides fresher results for web searches (nearly 50 percent fresher than our previous system) and it's the largest collection of web content we've offered. We built Caffeine to help us meet the evolving expectations of our users, especially as content across the web becomes more global and is published in real time. Caffeine is the definition of speed for us, and we were excited to make this announcement and continue to bring you the best possible content—faster than ever before.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more enhancements next week.

Posted by Jack Menzel, Product Management Director, Search

This week in search 6/6/10

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.

We work hard to consistently develop new tools, features and algorithmic changes to help us better understand what you mean when you enter a query into the Google search box—and we ultimately use that understanding to get you the information you're looking for as fast as possible. Understanding is core to our mission—particularly as we strive to be as useful in your everyday tasks. For example, if you search for a local sports team, and there's been a recent game, we'll show you scores. If you're visiting Boston and looking for a restaurant, you'll find tailored search suggestions based on the best Beantown spots. It's these features that enhance the experience of searching and help you find exactly what you're looking for. This week, we've made a few changes that we hope will make Google search even better for you.

Spelling Corrections in Suggest
Since we first launched Google Suggest, we've offered spell-corrected search completions to provide you with similar search queries from other users. With this feature, not only does Suggest help you rest your fingers because you don't have to type out a full query—you can also catch a mistake quickly and easily.

An example of old spelling correction in Google Suggest

This week we launched an update that makes Google Suggest even more intuitive and simple. If you're typing a query for which there are no search completions to offer, and yet some of your search terms do seem to be misspelled, Google Suggest will now offer a "Did you mean" suggestion for your query—giving you an option to correct your spelling right away and get on with your search. These spelling suggestions already exist on the results page, but by moving them to an earlier point in the search process, we hope we've made it faster and easier to get to the results you're looking for. Right now, this feature is offered only for google.com in English, but we're working to roll this out internationally in the near future.

Google Suggest with the new spelling corrections feature

Mobile app results in mobile search
With tens of thousands of apps available for both Android and iPhone phone, there are plenty of options to choose from when you're looking for new apps. And it makes sense that if you hear about a great new app while you're out and about, you'll want to download it then and there. In an effort to make apps even easier to find, this week we launched a new feature for mobile search that helps users on Android-powered devices and iPhones find and download mobile apps. So the next time you're looking for the latest action game, multimedia app or travel tool on your phone, we'll show you a special result at the top of your mobile search results showing basic information about the app you're looking for, including title, price and publisher. You'll also find a link that will take you directly to the app's installation page in the Android Market or Apple's App Store.

Example mobile searches on your iPhone or Android device: [download pandora] or [bank of america app]

A new look for the Google homepage
Search is more fun when it's personalized. That's why I was delighted to announce our new feature that allows you to personalize your Google homepage with a favorite photo. Whether you choose a picture from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery of photos hosted by Picasa, Google is now yours to personalize. To get started, head to google.com and look for the "Change background image" link in the lower left-hand side of the page. Keep an eye out for more fun announcements with this feature!

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

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

This week in search 5/30/10

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.

Safety, security and privacy are important parts of the search equation for us at Google, particularly as we continue to bring you the best possible search experience on the web. Security in particular can be an important part to your interaction with the Google search box, so we're always looking for ways to make changes and enhancements to that interaction secure. Especially as we all spend more time online, the importance of security has taken center stage. So in addition to this week's secure search enhancement, you can read our latest news and insights at our Online Security Blog.

More secure searches
Years ago we added Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption to products ranging from Gmail to Google Docs, as part of our effort to advance the safety and security of our products for you. Now you have a new choice to search more securely using https://www.google.com. When you use this https address, an encrypted session is established between your browser and Google that uses an SSL connection. Just like on an online banking page, the "https" confirms that you are using a more secure connection that will help protect your search terms and your search results from being intercepted by a third party. For more information on this security enhancement, read our announcement.

Example of encrypted search: [flowers]

Whether you're planning a trip by train or scouring the real-time web, this week's roundup also includes two search enhancements that should greatly improve the richness of yor search results -- no matter what you're looking for.

Images in real-time search updates
Ten blue links on a search results page can provide you with a lot of really helpful information, but sometimes you're searching for content that is richer than a textual web page. For instance, what are people saying about Lady Gaga's latest garb? Until now, it's been hard to get this kind of rich visual detail that's really fresh. So this week we began rolling out a feature for images in real-time search. When searching for the latest content across the real-time web, you'll be able to quickly see the images people are talking about right now (based on URLs of those images in their public updates.) To view this new feature, click on "Updates" in the lefthand panel when you complete a search. Then click on "Updates with images."

Example search: [pac-man doodle]

Transit search enhanced
Often when we search, it's to get from point A to point B, such as when the best route is by train. Then it's important to know the specific details of the train station near you, like which lines it serves. Now you can easily get this information in the lefthand panel on Google Maps by searching for the transit station. The lines are colored and grouped by transit type to make it easier to find the line you're looking for. For rail trains, you can see the departure time directly. For other types of transit like subways, buses and commuter trains, you can click on the line name to get the next departure time of each direction—all without having to leave the current page.

Example search: [Broadway-Lafayette St Station]

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned next week for more search news. Search on!

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management, Search

This week in search 5/14/10

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.

Google Translate learns and speaks new languages
This week, we launched 5 new "alpha" languages on Google Translate — Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Georgian and Urdu. We also extended our support for spoken translations to 29 more languages. With these launches, you can now translate text, webpages and documents between 57 languages, and hear translations spoken in 36 languages. For many search queries where you want to translate a word or a phrase, we offer a translation powered by Google Translate directly in our search results. We also recently added romanization to this feature — when translating to or from a foreign language, you can now see the translation written phonetically in roman characters.

Example searches: [translate how are you? to chinese] or [translate обезьяна]

Twenty more languages in Google search get virtual keyboard
Recently, we announced that we've integrated virtual keyboards into Google Search homepages in 35 languages. Virtual keyboard lets you type directly in your local language script in an easy and consistent manner, no matter where you are or what computer you’re using. Feedback is always important to us, and we were excited to get more than three thousand votes for other languages you felt the keyboard should be launched in. Today, we're happy to announce that we are adding Virtual Keyboard to another 20 languages — making it now available in 55 languages.

For those of you who speak a language we don't yet support, we're hard at work adding the virtual keyboard into more languages listed in Google Language Tools page. You can also vote for the languages you'd like us to add next. We always appreciate your feedback as we continue our efforts to help you input text in your desired languages as easily as possible.

Example languages we added this week:

• Amharic
• Bengali
• Danish
• Estonian
• Gujarati
• Kannada
• Lithuanian
• Latvian
• Maltese
• Marathi
• Nepali
• Norwegian
• Oriya
• Punjabi
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Romanian
• Sanskrit
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Tigrinya

Finding short answers
This week, we introduced a new feature that brings the technology of Google Squared right to your search results. Squared makes it easier to highlight answers for fact-based queries, so you can get more accurate answers, faster. Now, you'll see these answers right at the top of your search results, brought to you from across the web. And, we've also made sure this feature works great on mobile browsers.

Example searches: [timezone in nevada] or [when was jean-jacques rousseau born]

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

Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow