As promised last week, Twitter has launched its new home page with a new focus squarely on search and discovery. The new design invites you to “see what people are saying about…” by using the search box. Below that are three rows of popular topics: by the minute, day, and week. In a post on […]
It’s no secret that Google — and other search engines — uses a variety of factors to customize search results: your search history, your location, and so forth. If you misspell a word, search engines often guess what you intended to type and show auto-corrected results. But on Google’s search results pages, it’s becoming a […]
Lost in the shuffle of yesterday’s report about Bing’s impact on the search industry was some interesting and, for Microsoft, potentially valuable feedback on its new search engine. The J.P. Morgan report (available to the company’s clients at mm.jpmorgan.com) is based on a survey of 763 U.S. adults and their search behavior during June — […]
In my last Just Behave, I talked about how the vast majority of search engine users never go beyond the vanilla functionality of a search engine. They skip along the surface of search, never diving deep into advanced queries, filters or clicking on the tabs and links behind which lies some truly impressive capabilities. This […]
The SEO Home blog has noticed that Google UK is now testing removing the radio button to only show “pages from the UK.” If you visit google.co.uk you may notice the radio button, but some are noticing that the radio button for that country specific option is now missing. Google UK With the Country Specific […]
Kayak travel search launched a formal attack on Microsoft’s Bing Travel yesterday in an article that appeared on Wired, Kayak to Bing: Stop Copying Us!. Apparently, Kayak’s executives are more than a little steamed by the eerily similar look and feel, and even went so far as to put Microsoft on legal notice (presumably a […]
Google has always truncated the display URLs in the search results when it went beyond two lines, I believe. But now new reports from several sources are noticing that Google may be truncating the URLs to a single line, when applicable. Below is a screen shot of Google shortening URLs. As you can see, the […]
Yahoo continues to develop a new home page, and today has shared a sneak-peek at the latest design that’s being tested internally. The “My Favorites” column on the left side of the page seems to be where the big changes are happening. Yahoo currently lists more than a dozen of its own properties in this […]
Last Thursday, I talked with Twitter cofounder Biz Stone on a variety of issues about Twitter but especially focused around search. In the interview, he discussed: how Twitter may redesign its home page to better reposition itself as a sharing and discovery service; how discovery might be enhanced by perhaps by allowing people to share […]
Google Operating System reports Google Images is testing a new type of image search refinement technique, on a result by result basis. The example and screen capture provided in the blog post shows how Google is showing results for flowers. Under some of the flower images, Google is showing refinements for other searches that searchers […]
Shortly after announcing last week’s “Search Options,” Google offered a peek behind the scenes of its decision-making process and how the company arrived at the current version of Search Options. But they did reveal a little too much in the process? Google Operating System did a close examination into one of the screenshots Google shared […]
The paint might still be drying, but you can take the new Google News for a spin. It has a mix of aesthetic and functional changes, all of which Google announced earlier today. If you remember last week’s news about Google’s new story display pages, you’ll recognize this week’s changes to the category pages. “Top […]
I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google seems to be testing a new type of AdWords ad. The ad is an extension of the AdWords Product Plusbox feature Google has been introducing to advertisers who use Google Base. The new method is to not show the plus box, but instead just show three […]
Google has announced a major overhaul of Webmaster Tools that’s filled with both major and minor design and functionality changes. The most obvious change is the new dashboard that now shows Top search queries, Crawl errors, Links to your site, and Sitemap information — saving users what used to be several clicks to get this […]
Google News has changed how they display clusters of news. If you take a look at a news cluster, such as this one you will now notice links across the top that read “Full Coverage of articles, blogs, local sources, images, quotes and videos.” You can then click view more articles within blogs, videos, or […]
It appears that Google is testing new user interfaces for Google Web Search, Google Video Search and Google Finance. On Google Web Search, Google is testing showing “Review This Site” as a link, as opposed to a graphical comments icon. On Google Video Search, Google is testing additional search filters on the left hand side. […]
Google Video has updated the search results design and interface recently. The new design shows search results along the left hand column and the selected video on the right hand side. The video on the right hand side expands and contracts based on the size of your browser window. It also displays the video’s title, […]
At the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona in February Yahoo announced “Yahoo Mobile,” a more integrated presentation of Yahoo’s mobile assets and a successor to the ineffectual Yahoo Go. Mobile represents a more coherent integration of what what had been a fragmented collection of mobile properties: oneSearch, Go, oneConnect and onePlace. This evening the […]
Google Blogoscoped spotted an interesting test at Google allowing searchers to refine their search results in various ways, including clicking through a “Wonder Wheel.” There’s nothing particularly game changing, but the test is interesting if only for demonstrating how Google will react when competitors suggest it is “behind” in the search space. My separate post, […]
Does Google depend too much on data over design instinct? Yes, says former Googler Douglas Bowman, who posted a goodbye note to the company on his last day there today. From his post: Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out […]
The LiveSide blog posted a screen shot of one example of how the Kumo, Microsoft’s possible new brand for Live Search, home page might look like. Here is that picture: Very similar to how Live.com works, but it simply reads “Kumo” instead. In other home page news, Yahoo has been testing a new home page […]
The Google Mobile blog announced they have made improvements to Google Image Search’s user interface and features for the iPhone and Android mobile devices. You can now see up to 20 images on a single page and when you click on the details of that image you can view a larger thumbnail, visit the web […]
Like many others, I saw the mention that came out on LiveSide earlier today about Microsoft’s new search interface and potential “Kumo” brand change. Now we, along with others, have received an internal memo about the changes along with some further screenshots Before jumping in, let’s talk about the brand change. I’ve lost track of […]
Dan Sharp at the Search Engine War blog noticed Google testing a new type of Sitelinks format. Google Sitelinks are the links you find under some of the Google search results. Typically, they are listed out in two columns and four rows, directly under the display URL. To see it in action, try this query. […]
The Twitter blog announced that they are now testing the integration of Twitter search directly at the top navigation of Twitter. Twitter Search has become incredibly popular, even when most people I speak with have no clue on how to find it. Twitter Search is not even currently linked to from Twitter’s main navigation, let […]
That’s what you’ll see when you search Google Maps for coffee in Seattle. Instead of plotting just the first 10 results on the map, Google will show dozens of red circles — maybe hundreds. That may not be enough, in fact, because the Google announcement is titled “1,000 is the new 10.” The announcement has […]
The Yahoo corporate blog announced that phase one of the Yahoo home page test is about done now. Yahoo has taken in a lot of feedback since launching a limited test of the new home page back in September 2008 and has decided to try some new things. Yahoo has decided to add more third-party […]
B2B marketers invest a substantial amount of time, effort, and money driving visitors to websites. Making sure the site adheres to basic usability principles is critical to maximizing online marketing results and alleviating obstacles that prevent prospects from taking the desired actions. Below are six, easy to implement usability tips to ensure that visitors get […]
Michael Arrington went on a rant about Google testing sound effect in the new Google SearchWiki. In short, Michael is upset that Google would spend the time adding sound effects over adding an option to turn off SearchWiki. I do agree with with Michael on this, but we do know that feature is coming in […]
Google is testing a number of changes to its search results, including a way for select publishers to enhance their page descriptions, a way for searchers to jump to sub-sections of a web page and automatically correcting misspelled queries, to some degree.
It was just a few months ago when Google.com added search suggestions to the main page. Now, I am receiving reports that Google is testing enhancing those suggestions by showing URLs in the suggestions, in some cases. For example, Sam at Oh! Nuts emailed me a screen shot of Google showing his URL in the […]
Yesterday, Google Reader team announced that they have released a cleaner and fresher look to Google Reader. The change incorporates a less blueish color scheme and a more whitish scheme. Google has consolidated some of the features, added collapsible navigational links on the left and rounded some of the corners. But to my surprise, the […]
Who knew that the little “man” that helps users navigate StreetView is called “Pegman”? As much as I’m a fan of StreetView, there was always something a bit awkward about maneuvering the little man on the map to launch the StreetView image window. But Google has now made a number of improvements that make it […]
Four days after it launched, Google SearchWiki continues to attract much attention from critics and fans alike. Meanwhile, there remain questions on how it all works, under the hood. Below, a follow-up to my Google SearchWiki 101: An Illustrated Guide article from last week, answering some of the remaining questions. Oh, and for those looking […]
The Google Mobile Blog announced a new version of Google search for iPhone 2.x users. The new version looks more iPhone like and the search results fit better within the iPhone’s mobile Safari browser. The local results also have “Get Directions” link to the Maps app and a clickable phone number. Here are some screen […]
The new iGoogle theme just launched, which adds “full canvas views for gadget and support for full feed reading.” In short, the new view places the tabs that you typically see at the top, under the search box, now on the left hand side. It then allows you to add gadgets that support canvas view, […]
Yahoo has announced that they have changed the Search Monkey enhanced results template to a new layout. Here is a before and after shot:
Yahoo has announced they are testing a new home page in the US, UK, France and India. The new homepage contains information from both Yahoo and non-Yahoo properties, such as AOL Mail and Gmail data. They will also keep the “Featured” section more up to date with “timely content from across the Web” and adding […]
At the end of July Google Maps introduced an updated design and some new features. But it also removed some features, including the ability to drag and reorder destinations (e.g., for a multi-city trip). That capability is now back, according to SERountable. Google has added travel time between destinations as well.
Ever since the launch of Google Universal Search, Google has been showing videos in the web search results. But sometimes, there are more than one video shown in the web search results and, in many cases, those multiple videos will take up the space of 2 or more of the ten results shown. Philipp Lenssen […]