search

Google’s been rolling out a series of product updates lately in an effort to unify its many services in terms of both looks and features departments. For example, the company is working towards bringing the encrypted and regular search pages on par. Today, the Google Operating System blog spotted that the advanced image search interface has been re-worked to function more like the corresponding web search page. In addition, the new interface provides access to the features that were previously only available in the sidebar. You’d want to tap the advanced search page (by clicking the “Advanced Image Search” link on images.google.com) in order to narrow down your search results to a domain or a country, a certain filetype or list only Creative Commons images.

Google’s art department’s not been standing still either. Ever since Larry Page took over Google’s reins and pledged his company would put great design front and center, we’ve seen the search behemoth revamp its many properties. It started with the appealing Circles interface in Google+ and continued with the little tweaks that have freshened up the overly simplistic and geeky appearance of Google’s many web properties, bringing them on par with the Google+ theme. Latest examples include the Google Account sign-in page and the Blogger interface, both updated with the new look. Google hired renowned designer who worked on the original Macintosh, Andy Hertzfeld, to create the Circles user interface.

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Have you been redirected to the encrypted Google search page this morning? Worry not, you should be honored for having participated in “an experiment”, the Google Operating System blog reports. The search monster is sending “some percentage of Chrome 14 users” to the more secure, SSL-enabled search page, which is still in beta. The reason?

They are testing out the new functionality of the SSL page, which now sports nearly all of the features of its non-SSL counterpart. Previously, encrypted search lacked many features of the regular search page, such as Image Search, Google Instant and Instant Preview. The encrypted search page still lacks navigation links and Google Maps doesn’t support SSL yet.

As Google works to bring feature parity between SSL and non-SSL search pages, eventually users might just tick a check box in their search settings to opt-in to SSL search. SSL, a secure communications protocol, ensures that anything that gets sent between your browser and Google’s servers (such as your query and search results) is encrypted to prevent eavesdropping.

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We now know that Baidu Yi, a brand new mobile operating system unveiled Monday by Baidu, the dominant search engine company in China, is forked from Android. We knew it would be stripped of Google search, but we haven’t been aware of the extent of customization. A DigiTimes story from this morning indicates the software cuts all ties with Google services:

Baidu’s new software platform will feature map, e-book reader, cloud storage and search functions.

Baidu yesterday forged a partnership with Dell, which is expected to unveil first Baidu Yi-powered tablets and smartphones this November, in time for the holiday shopping season. Some even think Baidu Yi gear will roll out worldwide rather than in China only. The publication also highlights another interesting nugget we haven’t known, that Dell will preload devices with an Android-based app of its own.

Basically a storefront to the online Dell store, the app will allow for buying Dell computers online and giving ratings. No doubt Dell sees Baidu Yi both as an opportunity to drum up publicity for their ailing tablet business and upsell consumers to their computer products. No word on whether Baidu Yi will run a customized user interface atop Android, similar to Samsung’s TouchWiz or Motorola’s MotoBlur.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5RZOU6vK4Q]

Google’s been tight-lipped about the intricate, intertwined algorithms that make their search machine tick and we can only speculate how they rank web pages beyond the commonly known guidelines for web developers. A whole cottage industry is thriving out there, built on the presumption that one can reverse-engineer parts of the Google code so to affect search results and ensure the best possible placement. While Googlers aren’t about to spill the beans on the industry’s most closely-kept secret, they did reveal a couple of tidbits in a video published over at the official Google blog.

“While an improvement to the algorithm may start with a creative idea, it always goes through a process of rigorous scientific testing”, the company wrote in the post. “Simply put”, Google explains, “if the data from our experiments doesn’t show that we’re helping users, we won’t launch the change”. For example, did you know that the Google search algorithm is made up of several hundred different “signals” that collectively determine the results? Surprisingly, just last year Google perfected its search engine with more than five hundred algorithm changes, most of them rolled out quietly. More tidbits in that YouTube video, embedded above.

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In its never-ending battle against annoying spammers who pollute our search results, the Dublin, Ireland arm of the Internet search giant published job openings for spam fighters who are fluent speakers of Arabic, German, Russian and Spanish, indicating the rising spam threat in those markets. The job listing requires would-be candidates to have BA/BS degree, “preferred with a strong academic record”, excellent web research and analytical skills and experience with HTML and working for an Internet company.

If terms such as ‘WHOIS’ or ‘DNS’ mean nothing, don’t even apply as understanding of firewalls, IP addresses and name servers is a must as you’ll be directly impacting the quality of Google’s search results through search quality evaluation. Here’s from Google:

You will be working on the cutting edge of search and the forefront of the web ensuring quality information is provided to millions of internet users, and you will be expected to keep pace with constant change in a fast-paced work environment, bringing innovative ideas to improve access to relevant information on the web. You are a web-savvy individual who is a take-charge team player, as well as a quick learner and strongly interested in providing a better search experience for Google users.

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Google and ESPN have announced they are now offering sports scores, presented through microdata, straight into Google Search results. For now, Google and ESPN will only be offering Baseball, but more sports will be following very soon. A simple search of “Baseball Scores” returned the following results.

Besides making the obvious search, you can also search specifically for teams, players, and scores. The results include up-to-date game scores and statistics, and link off to content on ESPN.
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[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grr1arPxX0E”]

To go along with their new expanded sitelinks, Google is testing infinite scrolling in Google Search. This new feature will allow you to view all of your search results on one page, but you do have to click a “more results” button. Google has already announced this feature in Images, so there is a chance this could stick around in Search. Google told Search Engine Land, “Google is constantly experimenting with new features.” (Waebo via The Next Web)

Today on their Search Blog, Google announced a new layout for sitelinks under Search results. The new update brings an expanded look for sitelinks — showing the title, URL, and a snippet of text from the site. Instead of eight sitelink results, a site can now have twelve.

Sitelinks will now be full-size links with a URL and one line of snippet text—similar to regular results—making it even easier to find the section of the site you want. We’re also increasing the maximum number of sitelinks per query from eight to 12.

Sitelinks will also be using a similar algorithm to regular search results, to provide a higher-quality list of links. The update will be rolling out to users over the next couple of days.

Social postings from Twitter, Youtube, and Flickr have appeared in Google Search for quite awhile, and with the launch of Google+ it was only a matter of time until public Google+ posts were appearing too (as seen above). Google announced via their blog Friday that public Google+ posts are now available in Search.

Note, ONLY public posts will be appearing — private posts will not. To see this feature you will need to have a Google+ account and be logged in to your Google account.
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Google has just released a new version of the Google Search app for Android that includes several welcomed UI enhancements and new features. Among the more notable, an “updated and simplified” UI (image above),  country-specific suggestions and search results,  and suggestions can now be grouped by type (web suggestions on top).

From the Google Mobile Blog:

• Suggestions grouped by type, with web suggestions at the top.
• Country-specific suggestions and search results for all countries with Google domains.
• Long press to remove history items.
• Faster, smoother performance, with an updated and simplified user interface.

The update is available for devices running Android 2.2 and up… you can swing by the market and grab it now. Google also posted some tips for some of the enhancements that have been incorporated in the update:

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Tech News just launched a new Editors’ Picks feature that provides a personal, human touch, straying from the “generated entirely by computer algorithms without human editors” approach of the past.

The new feature won’t exactly have Google employees suggesting their favorite articles, but rather aggregate content that publications have highlighted as being their “most engaging content”. Editors’ Picks will be available initially in the right column of the U.S. Tech News page and display content from nearly two dozen publications Google has selected to participate. The feeds you will see in the new feature will depend on your news preferences.

Publications and news organizations can head over to the News Help Center to learn more.

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Much like the long-forgotten Buzz social service, Google also quickly abandoned their Realtime Search feature after an agreement to display Twitter updates in search results expired on July 2, 2011. However, it seems the success of Google+ may have encouraged the team to revive the product and possibly integrate it right into search results within the Google+ stream.

Mashable reports Googler Amit Singhal told a crowd during a search panel, while “The value the product was providing was not enough,” the team is, “actively working” on reviving realtime search in one way or another. He also noted that Google+ integration and data from other social and realtime services is something the team is evaluating.

Why not just bring realtime search results right into your Google+ stream you ask? When SearchEngineLand asked the panel about a potential search engine within the recently 25-million strong service, Singhal responded, “We are on it.”

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0XLL86e1FU]

Google today released a new bottom-floating toolbar for Internet Explorer and Chrome users (no Firefox?) called Google Related.  They explain it like this:

Google Related is a browsing assistant that offers interesting and useful content while you are browsing the web. For instance, if you’re browsing a page about a restaurant in San Francisco, Google Related will assist you by displaying useful information about this restaurant such as the location of the restaurant on a map, user reviews, related restaurants in the area, and other webpages related to San Francisco restaurants — all in one place.

Whenever you’re navigating to a new page, Google Related will look for interesting related content and, if available, display it in a bar at the bottom of your page. Google Related can display categories such as videos, news articles, maps, reviews, images, web sites and more. To preview a listed item or see additional items, just use your mouse to hover over different categories in the bar. For example, when you hover over a video link, the video pops up in a preview box and you can play the video directly on the page.

This is an interesting move that will likely get a lot more clicks through Google…if it catches on.
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The new search layout on the Motorola Xoom. Web (left) and image (right) results. Click for larger.

Google last month announced a bunch of enhancements to its search engine and today the company confirmed via a blog post an overhauled layout on tablets, which the blog Digital Inspirations leaked two days ago. From now, searching on your tablet by visiting the main Google search takes you to an overhauled search results page. It’s surprising it took Google so much time to optimize the search experience on slates, really. You can tell the new layout is easier on the eyes and we are love in love with the bigger buttons. Now you can finally hit the controls on smaller tablets without having to sand down your finger first.

Our favorite: The big, unobtrusive buttons right below the search box for quick access to specific search silos, such as web, images, news and so forth. Also noteworthy, the image search results page now appears way more attractive due to larger previews and continuous scroll – just go to the bottom and a new batch of images loads automatically. The new layout will be available on iPad and Android Honeycomb 3.1 tablets and in 36 languages “in the coming days”, everyone’s favorite search monster noted.

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Digital Inspiration reports Google is testing out a new search page design created specifically for tablets, but likely to make its way onto desktops as well. The new tablet-optimized search home page puts forth a cleaner layout with new visual features recently applied to Gmail, Calendar and their other properties. Old graphics is gone and replaced with a Google+-like appearance, along with the black Google navigation bar at the top that recently appeared on desktop.

A brand new thing: The top row of icons for filtering down search results by type (images, news, web, etc.) has been replaced with the traditional lefthand column with search tools, still present on desktop. Does this change signal the new design for search silos across desktop and mobile? If Google’s recent focus on consistency in design is an indication, than the answer should be a resounding ‘yes’. Google has not officially rolled out the new design, but we’re expecting them to make an announcement soon. Another screenshot right below the fold.

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Google is celebrating the 113th birthday of sculptor Alexander Calder (Wikipedia article) with an interesting Google Doodle on the main search homepage. Conveniently, it is a digital take on one of Calder’s famous mobile sculptures and interactive, too: You can rotate it around in three dimensions by pointing your mouse at one of the edges until the pointer changes to the drag handle.

The digital sculpture reacts differently depending on which piece of it you “grab” to rotate the whole thing. Notice how it also casts a realistic shadow below the search box, in real-time. Calder is well-known for the Cirque Calder, a miniature sculpture of a working circus he created to fit inside a suitcase. He went later on to perfect the art of mobile sculpting using common materials such as wire, string, pull toys and more.

via the official Google blog

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cWYZculurU]

Can Google’s search UI get any better?  Yes!

Google Operating System is reporting Google is testing an infinite scrolling feature on their search page. As you can see in the video above — the navigation bar, the search box, and the search options sidebar stays fixed at the top as the user continues to scroll down. Google is also testing a new page preview UI, requiring you to hover over the magnifying glass to see the preview.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu-YsZNpkZs]

Remember WDYL, the Google-owned site affectionately named What Do You Love? It rolled out quietly last month to no fanfare as a glorified Google.com frontend to present search results across numerous Google products with pretty layouts. It has gotten some press time before most folks forgot about it so Google made this little video to remind us of the project and showcase the power of HTML5 and Google search.

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Google said in a tweet four hours ago that they have temporarily disabled  a dynamic stream of real-time content in people’s search results until they figure out how to bake this functionality into their latest social service dubbed Google+:

We’ve temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We’re exploring how to incorporate Google+ into this functionality, so stay tuned.

Trying to access the google.com/realtime web page produces a 404 page not found error. Google real-time was conceived two years ago as a way to enhance people’s search results with the latest news headlines, blog posts and updates from Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed and other social sites. With the Google+ service the company has upped the ante in the social department so it makes sense to use Google+ to have one place to connect with your friends, share photos, links and other content as well as track updates from other social services across the web.

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Search Engine Land discovered Monday that Google is experimenting with a brand new black navigation bar. Today, the revamped bar goes live for some as the company gradually rolls out the changes to everyone. The search firm rarely messes with its legendary homepage design, so their creative director Chris Wiggins lays out in a post over at the official Google blog the main principles behind the redesign. It’s about focus, elasticity and effortlessness, he explains:

We’re bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of your way. Even simple changes, like using bolder colors for actionable buttons or hiding navigation buttons until they’re actually needed, can help you better focus on only what you need at the moment.

He says the new design lends itself to a consistent visual experience across desktop and mobile, “without sacrificing style or usefulness”. Google says a crucial part of the new experience is the use of the latest technologies like HTML5 and WebGL so “you have all the power of the web behind you”. They will roll out the new bar over the course of the following months to other properties, including Google Maps and Gmail.

The original Google.com homepage in 1997.

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TechCrunch is reporting this morning that Google’s new site WDYL is live, but not officially announced. WDYL stands for What Do You Love, and the one suggestion would be NewGeekGuide. But for testing’s sake, we’ll give you a pass if you search for something else in this sleek new service.

So what is this lovely new service? WDYL allows users to make one search that will turn up results in all of Google’s products. As you can see below, our search for NewGeekGuide turned up results in Tech News, Picasa, Books, Search, Translate, and many more.

Google hasn’t officially announce WDYL, but the product is out there to use.  To give WDYL a try, head to www.wdyl.com. The www. is required in this case, because going to wdyl.com turns up a 404. We should expect to see google announcing this soon.