Google Tests a New Mobile Search Interface

Google tests a new card-style interface for mobile search results. There are special cards for Knowledge Graph results, results from specialized search engines and for related searches. The new interface only shows Previous/Next buttons.

Many Google web apps and mobile apps use the card-style interface that was first added to Google Now. You can find it in Google Search, Google Play, Google+, the new Google Maps, Google Keep, the new YouTube app. "A lot of use of white space, not a lot of artificial, surface-like divisions. We're really counting on bold typography, white space, and big images to give emphasis, give character and give hierarchy to the cards that we give you," said Matias Duarte, who leads the Android User Experience team.

{ Thanks, Nedas. }

Try the New Google Search Interface in Chrome 29

If you enable "Instant Extended API" in the recently released Chrome 29, you also get a new Google Search interface that hides the search box, has a new navigation menu and a new share button. This also enables the updated new tab page which is actually a simplified Google homepage.

To try the experimental new tab page and the new Google interface, paste this in Chrome's address bar: chrome://flags/, use Ctrl+F to search for "Enable Instant Extended API" and click "Enabled" in the drop-down below "Enable Instant Extended API". Then click "Relaunch now" at the bottom of the page to restart Chrome. To disable this feature, use the same instructions, but click "Disabled" instead of "Enabled".

Result Details - a Google Search Experiment

There's a new Google experiment that annotates search results with information about the sites. Most of the information is obtained from Wikipedia articles, but there are a few exceptions.

Here are some examples. Click "Wired (magazine)" next to the search result URL and you'll read an excerpt from the Wikipedia article about Wired. Google also shows if the site is a Webby Award winner.

If you click the similar link placed next to the Google Voice blog, you can read some old information about GrandCentral, which was acquired by Google in 2007. The information is not obtained from a Wikipedia article.

The panels that show result details are quite useful and help you find more information about a site before visiting it. Unfortunately, the site needs to have a Wikipedia article, but that will probably change if the experiment becomes a standard feature.

Google's algorithms that associate pages with entities and Wikipedia articles are not perfect. The result details for google.ca are really funny:

To try this experiment, install a cookie manager extension like "Edit This Cookie" for Chrome, go to google.com and change the value of the NID cookie to:

67=p2QqiMkeBvGpTUoMlME_QMwGVE9LaS3h9FlO1p0kyVOCg9NVW8uNwAKALJalAfhHJweQdt7KDWjpv6P_1vsE-EGlABKpxK8PRUbwwQm2QBm9rZ3rARFBz6lCKcp2KF_x

If you use "Edit This Cookie", don't forget to click "Submit changes". Delete the NID cookie to opt-out from the experiment.

{ via Techno-Net }

Google Tests Desktop Sub-sitelinks

A few months ago, Google's mobile search site tested sub-sitelinks. "The links shown below some of Google's search results, called sitelinks, are meant to help users navigate your site. Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they're looking for," explains Google. The expandable sub-sitelinks go deeper and send users to some popular subsections of a site.

The same sub-sitelinks are now tested by Google's desktop search interface. Sub-sitelinks are only displayed for navigational results. The experiment makes the top result a lot more prominent and shows snippets and arrows next to the regular sitelinks. The homepage title is bigger and Google uses the card layout.

Click the arrows to see the sub-sitelinks.

Here's a video:

To try this experiment, install a cookie manager extension like "Edit This Cookie" for Chrome, go to google.com and change the value of the NID cookie to:

67=bmHw1iFJSvWl2_5KKxRfyyqHcge-1Ki-6j033efhbbojYKHEFKmAUPx-XYe2dHQi0a8mu_CqdbVH5ir0J4ZNKv7QXl_uftc7XY7Mx5UXge1RRKNpmH6Q-q9v-gfYfsbZ

If you use "Edit This Cookie", don't forget to click "Submit changes". Delete the NID cookie to opt-out from the experiment.

{ via Techno-Net }

Google Showcases In-depth News Articles

If you search for a broad topic like [love], [global warming], [censorship], [North Korea], Google shows 3 in-depth news articles at the bottom of the first search results pages. It's an effort to go beyond promoting recent news articles and reward news sites that write detailed articles and in-depth analyses.

Here's an example for [recession]: 3 long articles from Esquire, New York Times and Forbes.

The results for [amazon prime] include a Gizmodo article.

The results for [startups] include a TechCrunch article from April 2012 about the top startup ecosystems.

The first in-depth result for [cloud computing] is a 2007 Businessweek article about Google. It's called "Google and the Wisdom of Clouds".

"To understand a broad topic, sometimes you need more than a quick answer. Our research indicates perhaps 10% of people's daily information needs fit this category - topics like stem cell research, happiness, and love, to name just a few. (...) I'm happy to see people continue to invest in thoughtful in-depth content that will remain relevant for months or even years after publication. This is exactly what you'll find in the new feature. In addition to well-known publishers, you'll also find some great articles from lesser-known publications and blogs," says Google's Pandu Nayak.

There's a help center article that offers more information about this feature. "While the feature is based on algorithmic signals, there are steps you can take as a webmaster to help Google find your high-quality, in-depth content and best present it to users in the search." Google suggests to use schema.org article markup, Google authorship markup, logos and content that can be accessed without subscription.

Google News has a similar section that's called "spotlight", but it only includes recent news articles. "The Spotlight section of Google News is updated periodically with news and in-depth pieces of lasting value. These stories, which are automatically selected by our computer algorithms, include investigative journalism, opinion pieces, special-interest articles, and other stories of enduring appeal. To access the stories in this section, just click Spotlight on the left side of the page."

Google Timer

The desktop Google Search has a cool feature: search for [set timer for 5 minutes] and you'll see this interactive timer box. You can stop the timer, reset it and Google even has a notification sound you can disable.

Here's a video for a 15 seconds timer:

You can search for [set timer for 30 seconds], [set timer for 10 minutes and 10 seconds], [set timer for an hour and a half]. You can also use shorter queries: [timer for 30 seconds], [timer 30 seconds], [timer 30 sec], [timer 23 hours 59 min 59 sec].

If you close the search page, Google shows a warning: "Leaving this page will stop your timer".

Click "reset" and it will start again. Click the volume icon to mute sound notifications. Click the timer and you can edit it (press Enter when finished):

You can also search for [timer 2pm], [timer 5:30], [timer 2pm tomorrow], [timer 2pm Thursday], but it doesn't work well everywhere. In Europe it uses GMT time, not the local time.

{ via Search Engine Roundtable and Reddit}

One Password. All of Google

Google Australia continues to promote Google Accounts and now shows a short message and some icons below the search box: "One password. All of Google. Sign in." Google shows the icons for Search, Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, Maps, Play and Google+.

It's a simplified version of Google's sign-in page. "Want to enjoy the best of Google? Just stay signed in. One username and password is all you need to unlock more features from services you use every day, like Gmail, Maps, Google+, and YouTube."

While it's nice to use so many services using a single username and password, it's also dangerous. Using a single account to store your email, your calendar, your contacts, your documents, photos, videos and music, your search history, your bookmarks, your financial information, your location history, your Google+ posts and blogs, the apps you've installed using Google Play and much more? It sounds pretty scary. 2-step verification solves the "one password" issue, but makes things more complicated. Maybe it's time to think beyond passwords.

{ Thanks, Michel. }

What's The Right Answer?

Sometimes the same question can have multiple answers, even when you're looking for a simple fact. I've searched for [ny population] using Google and Bing and got two completely different answers. Google's answer is 8.245 million, while Bing's answer is 19,501,616.

It's obvious that Google replaced "ny" with "New York City", while Bing replaced it with "New York State". If you're searching for [new york], Google will show information about the city, while Bing's data refers to the state.

To disambiguate your query, you need to search for [ny city population] or [ny state population] and both search engines will return similar answers.

What if you search for [ronaldo age]? Here's what you get: 28 years (Google) and 36 years (Bing). Google mentions that the answer is for Cristiano Ronaldo, but Bing doesn't.

Both answers are OK because there are two football players known as Ronaldo: Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima (born 18 September 1976, retired Brazilian player) and Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (born 5 February 1985, Portuguese football player - Real Madrid). Most of the top search results from both Bing and Google are about Cristiano Ronaldo.

To make things more confusing, Bing also provides information about Cristiano Ronaldo:

More examples:

To sum up, it's a good idea to disambiguate your query and to check the answers provided by search engines.

Google's Homepage Promotes the Mobile Search App

Google's mobile homepage now promotes the Google Search app for iOS. There's a big banner at the top of the page in both Safari and Chrome for iPhone and iPad.

There's a standard iOS feature for promoting mobile apps, but Google doesn't use it.

"Smart App Banners vastly improve users' browsing experience compared to other promotional methods. As banners are implemented in iOS 6, they will provide a consistent look and feel across the web that users will come to recognize. Users will trust that tapping the banner will take them to the App Store and not a third-party advertisement. They will appreciate that banners are presented unobtrusively at the top of a webpage, instead of as a full-screen ad interrupting the web content. And with a large and prominent close button, a banner is easy for users to dismiss," explains Apple.

Google implements a similar feature, but it doesn't work so well. Dismissing the banner doesn't work: when I open google.com in a new tab or refresh the page, the banner shows up again. That's annoying.

How do I know that Google doesn't use Apple's smart app banners? Here's Yelp's site: the banner includes ratings and screenshots from the App Store.

Another clue: Google's banner is also displayed in Chrome and smart app banners are limited to Safari. Google should use the smart app banner for Safari and the custom banner for other browsers. Oh, and you should be able the dismiss the custom banner.

Gay Google (2013)

It's already a tradition at Google: every year in June, search results pages for queries like [gay], [lgbt], [lesbian], [transgender] have some special multicolored decorations to celebrate the Gay & Lesbian Pride Month. Here's this year's decoration: a rainbow search box with a nice 3D effect.

"From Silicon Valley LGBTQ mixers to Hangouts with Google Executives, planning a successful Google Pride is about more than coordinating the colors of the rainbow. Gayglers from all departments of Google formed sub-committees to discuss budget, plan events, order schwag and advertise Pride while keeping an eye on the prize: ensuring the messages of diversity, inclusion and pride are central themes throughout it all," informs a Google+ post about Google's 8th annual Pride Parade: June 30th - San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, and Dublin. Here's a post about last year's parade.

You can also check the colorful interfaces from 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

{ Thanks, Camilo. }

Google's Tilde Operator No Longer Works

Google had an advanced search operator that allowed you get results for different variations of your query. "Normally, synonyms might replace some words in your original query. Add a tilde sign (~) immediately in front of a word to search for that word as well as even more synonyms. For example, [~food facts] includes results for 'nutrition facts'," explained Google.

Now the tilde operator is missing from Google's help center article and it no longer works. A search for [~food facts] returns the same results you can find when you search for [food facts]. One workaround is to search for [food OR nutrition facts].

Here's a screenshot from 2008 (licensed as Creative Commons by Philipp Lenssen):

A cool trick that used to work was to search for [~query -query] to find synonyms. "What you do is to first do a search on ~help -help which is the AWO [Approximate Word Operator] and the word help and then minus and the word help. You will then see another word appearing in the results which is a synonym for help. Use the Exclude Word Operator (-) in front the the word e.g. -guide and then what appears in the top listings now. Continue through each word until there are no more synonyms left."

I'm sure that very few people used this obscure operator, but it's just another power user feature that Google removes. Most likely, many others will follow.

Here's one of the many book pages that's now obsolete:

Update: Dan Russell, from Google, confirms the deprecation. "Yes, it's been deprecated. Why? Because too few people were using it to make it worth the time, money, and energy to maintain. In truth, although I sometimes disagree with the operator changes, I happen to agree with this one. Maintaining ALL of the synonyms takes real time and costs us real money. Supporting this operator also increases the complexity of the code base. By dropping support for it we can free up a bunch of resources that can be used for other, more globally powerful changes."

{ Thanks, Enrico Altavilla. }

Finding Synonyms Using Google Search

Just the other day, I was trying to find a synonym for [ubiquitous] and searched Google for [ubiquitous synonym]. Google returned a regular list of search results and I was surprised to see that Google doesn't offer an instant answer for a basic query like this.

Then I realized that the dictionary OneBox includes a list of synonyms, so a search for [ubiquitous definition], [define ubiquitous] or even just [ubiquitous] returns a great synonym: omnipresent.

Sometimes Google has a lot of information, but doesn't make it accessible.

Knowledge Graph and Google Bombs

Google bombing has a new meaning, with the introduction of the Knowledge Graph. From [more evil than Satan himself] to [miserable failure], Google bombs were created by getting many web pages to link to the target homepage and use the same anchor text. For example, Microsoft haters linked to Microsoft's homepage and used this anchor text back in 1999: [more evil than Satan himself]. After a few months, Google's top result for [more evil than Satan himself] was Microsoft's homepage. Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button made Google bombs more popular, many people thinking that Google modified search results pages.

Here's a screenshot from 1999, well preserved by bedope.com:

... and the well-known political message "miserable failure" (screenshot from 2007):

Google started to use some algorithms to defuse bombs in 2007, but there are still ways to artificially inflate Google rankings for a page to show your opinion. For example, when you search for [completely wrong], Google shows pictures of Mitt Romney, the Republican Nominee for the US Presidential Election in 2012.

Knowledge Graph brings a new meaning to Google bombs. If you search for [kłamca], you'll get a Knowledge Graph box for Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland. "Kłamca" is a Polish word that means "liar". In fact, many of the top results for [kłamca] are about Donald Tusk, who is no longer popular in Poland.

Apparently, this Google bomb has been reported back in 2010 by Polish news sites. Back then, the top search result for [kłamca] was the Wikipedia page for Donald Tusk. Now Google shows an entire sidebar with information about the Prime Minister of Poland.

This reminds me of a screenshot from 2009. This time it's from Bing:

As Search Engine Land noticed, when you search for [miserable failure] using Google right now, you get an info pane about Google bombs and some disambiguation links for George W. Bush and political Google bombs.

{ Thanks, Jerzy. }