You may have noticed Google’s search results look a bit different today. Some people had commented seeing small changes in recent weeks and speculating that Google were testing some new layouts. At the moment it seems that the new layouts are really just a style issue and there is little substance behind them in terms of changes to the actual results.
The key feature seems to be the ability to hide some results. For instance if some Google Local results appear you can chose to hide them and just see the pure search results. If you are looking for news, then the more recent additions to the search index plus known news sites are returned. It is also now possible to switch between local results and the web within the search results, previously this decision had to be made before the search.
The options now consist of the following, so you can more easily search the specific areas of Google:
This does give you a little more control in your search, for example if you search for “UK election latest” there are 27 million results. You may decide that actually you are more interested in what bloggers are saying, or you may want to watch a video instead, and these results appear in 1 click.
“Discussions” provides something new to Google, or at least something that was previously there packaged differently. It seems that Google can now recognise when content is within a forum, so if you are keen to voice your own opinion in a new website it is now easier and quicker to find somewhere to chat. No doubt comment spammers will exploit this feature, so at the moment it remains to be seen if this service will actually provide a much needed service to the web users or make life a misery for webmasters. It could help to revive interest in forums though, which is a good thing. What is a shame is blogs with comments are ignored in this section. With the move from the traditional forum to blog/comments as a way to discuss topics online, many of the most interesting discussions will be lost. A blog with 500 comments provides a greater and more varied set of opinions than a forum with 20 posts which are all from a close knit group of people that may not even welcome a new opinion.
One of the strangest changes is seen when searching for “News” items. If you search for news in Google you cannot see the URL of the websites listed. This does provide a more level playing field for people that provide a news service on their website, but some users may be put off by not knowing the website until after the click (OK, you should be able to see it when hovering, but not everyone, or every browser, knows this).
This is what Google says about the new Search Engine Results layout:
We’ve added contextually relevant, left-hand navigation to the page. This new side panel highlights the most relevant search tools and refinements for your query. Over the past three years, we’ve launched Universal Search, the Search Options panel and Google Squared, and it’s those three technologies that power the left-hand panel.
Universal Search helps you find the most relevant types of results for your search. The top section of the new left-hand panel builds on Universal Search by suggesting the most relevant genres of results for your query and letting you seamlessly switch to these different types of results. The “Everything” option remains our essential search experience with different types of results integrated into the main results, but now you can also easily switch to just the particular type of results you are looking for.
Our expandable Search Options panel launched last spring brought many rich slice-and-dice tools to search. The new left-hand navigation showcases these tools and enables you to get a different view of your results. Perhaps you’d like to see images from each of the results or just the newest information? These options are all on the left, and our technology will suggest the tools that are most relevant and helpful to your query
The other options allow you to find posts to suit your absolute current needs. You can search for a short post/article if you are in a hurry, or something published in the past year if you are less interested in recent results and more interested in reading an established piece of information.
Since Bing came along and made search results a bit more interesting to look at Google has lost some ground in the search engine market. This change seems to be mostly cosmetic on the surface, but it does allow the user to sort the data in a way to help them find information better. This is an interesting move as up until now search has been about automating the results. Now the users have more power. What remains to be seen now is if it will change the way people use the Internet. Will there be a revival in forums? Will news sites suffer as most people use regular search? Most importantly, are there now too many options?
