Google’s New Navigational Links: An Illustrated Guide
May 16, 2007 at 2:48pm ET by Danny Sullivan
After months of testing, Google is rolling out new ways to navigate within its search results and between different Google properties. Here’s an illustrated guide to the old and new.
Let’s start with the home page. How it currently looks, for someone who is logged in:
See the links the red arrow is pointing at? Those vertical search links have been directly above the Google search box for years. Over the coming days, they will now jump to the top left-hand side of the page, as shown below:
In addition to linking to Web, Images, Video, News and Maps search, there’s also a new Gmail link. As for that "more" link, it opens a drop-down menu with these options:
That same set of links will appear on various Google properties you visit. Google calls this the "Google Navigation Bar," and it is meant to let you navigate primarily through various search properties, though applications like Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs also show up.
Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, said me the navigation bar is also "property dependent" and will change depending on its "nearest neighbors." For example, the bar above knows you are on a search property, so search neighbors get listed. In contrast, consider this bar for when you are in Gmail:
See how Gmail is now the "selected" link on the far left, then you can jump to other applications such as Calendar, Docs and Photos?
Aside from navigational links, new "contextual navigation" links will appear for searches. Do a search, and if there are relevant results that show up from across various Google search properties, you’ll see links to these appear
Click on any of those the red arrow is pointing at, and you can then drill into specific listings from those vertical search engines.
Share, Bookmark & Discuss This Article
More:
Keep Updated: News Via Email | News Via RSS Feed | News Via Twitter
See more stories like this in the Members Library! Check out the Google: User Interface sections of the Members Library where this story is filed. Members also get access to exclusive video content, a members-only weekly & monthly newsletter, plus more. Check out all the benefits!
3 COMMENTS ON Google’s New Navigational Links: An Illustrated Guide
TOP STORIES
SEARCH NEWS BRIEFS
FEATURES & ANALYSIS
RECENT COMMENTS
- Zee said " No doubt about it. I screwed up royally with the Plancast / Myspace story. To clarify however, it wa"
- Chris Sherman said " Excellent tips, Josh. I'd only add one other thing: Don't be afraid to approach and talk with speake"
- Clifford Bryan said " Industrial espionage is a fairly common practice in China. The U.S. government does its fair share a"
FREE DAILY SEARCH NEWS RECAP!
SearchCap is a once-per-day newsletter update:
STAY CURRENT THROUGHOUT THE DAY
Search Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.
SMX Web Site » | SMX Difference » | SMX News »
Join us at an upcoming SMX event:
- SMX Munich – March 23-24, 2010
- SMX Toronto – April 8-9, 2010
- SMX Sydney – April 22-23, 2010
- SMX Advanced London – May 17-18, 2010
- SMX Advanced Seattle – June 8-9, 2010
- SMX East – October 4-6, 2010
- SMX Stockholm – October, 2010
Learn more about search marketing with our free online webcasts and webinars from our sister site, Search Marketing Now. Upcoming online events include:
- Business Blogging & SEO – March 11, 2010
- Excel Tips & Tricks for PPC Success – March 18, 2010
- Paid Search and Big Brand Marketing – March 23, 2010
FOLLOW US SOCIALLY
- Wall Street Journal Recommended Reading
- Ad Age Power 150 Blog
- Technorati Top 100 Blog
- Techmeme Leaderboard Source
- Best Search Engine Community/Forum
Featured sites from our Blogroll
- Ask the SEO Guru
- WebmasterRadio.FM SEO Rockstars Podcast
- google.dirson.com
- SearchCap: Daily Search Engine News Recap
- Ego Food
Get Your Search Engine Land
Premium Membership!
Become a premium member today and receive:
- Express commenting privileges & photo.
- Exclusive videos & newsletters.
- Discounts to our SMX conferences.
- Access to "How To" & Other Archives.
© 2010 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Google, Yahoo & Microsoft logos trademark respective companies and used with permission.
So will people actually see the navigation links now? The universal is there to somewhat replace it, but I think google could do a better job of educating people about what’s available. Their service is even better than most of their users ever realize
Nice nice-to-have-stuff for Google.
The thing I do not like about the common search engines is, that they do not recognize documents with similar content. It happens often on the Web that a post or document is spread out over more then 50 websites. Now that is great for the author but not for the searcher because it blows up your search result unnecessarily. With InfoCodex this will not happen because the linguistical database recognizes similar documents and puts them into groups. This does not blow up your search result unnecessarily.
http://www.ywesee.com/pmwiki.php/Ywesee/InfoCodexProcedure
Three things a modern Search engine should do:
1. Automatically classify a document according to its content.
2. Automatically generate an abstract of a document.
3. Generate a Heat-Map of the Contents of a Search Result.
http://www.ywesee.com/uploads/Main/InfoCodex_22.2.2007.pdf
Interesting to see where they are going – thanks for the info!