gHacks technology news » google search

3 Faster Less Obtrusive Google Search Engines

Martin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:14:52 +0000

There are two main reasons for switching to one of Google’s alternative search interfaces: Speed and Usability. The following three Google search engines utilize the same search index and parameters that the default Google search engine offers with the difference that all four of them are faster, more accessible and less obtrusive when displaying search results. One of the major points of criticism lately has been the additional elements that the standard Google search engine displays on the search results pages. This includes advertisement, sponsored listings, Google Maps, Google News or Youtube results thrown into the mix, something that many search engine users feel completely unnecessary.

Google Sandbox Search

This search engine comes close to the standard Google search engine. It makes use of a similar user interface with the main difference that the search result pages do not display advertisements or other elements that Google likes to add to those pages. [link]

Google XHTML

Google XHTML is a search interface for mobile devices. It can be accessed by desktop computers and normal web browsers. The benefit is a faster interface that displays the search results without additional noise. The search result listings are aligned to the left and contain titles and short descriptions of the contents. [link]

Google IE

Another interface for mobile devices. The IE suggests that it might be related to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in some way. This one the most barebone of them all which especially becomes apparent on the search results pages. The results only consist of the page titles with no description or other information thrown into the mix. This can be confusing if many of the websites listed in the results use the same or a similar title. [link]

Got anything to add? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: Google, google ie, google sandbox, google search, google search engine, google xhtml

Bing And Google Search To Integrate Twitter Results

Martin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:35:40 +0000

Real time search has become a buzzword this year. With Twitter increasing its popularity search engines like Bing or Google Search are aiming to make their search results real time or at least closer to that. We have seen some attempts already. Google for instance has included new time based filters for their search results that allow users to search for new content that has been published in the last hour. And with url hacks it is even possible to drop that figure below the one hour mark (see Google Real Time Search).

Twitter on the other hand adds another dimension to search. Not to every search but to specific search terms that are time related. Think for instance about news of plane crashes, earthquakes and other disasters and basically anything that benefits from real time observations.

Bing has already included Twitter in their search engine. The subpage of Bing displays popular topics on Twitter by default.

A search or a click on a popular tag will display the latest tweets and top links shared by Twitter users about the selected topic.

Google on the other hand has just announced that they will be adding Twitter results to their search engine as well in the coming months. According to the announcement only search terms that can benefit from real time observations.

The main question that neither Microsoft nor Google are addressing at the moment is how the quality of the content is evaluated. Since the content is displayed more or less in real time there is no time for a manual control of the content. How are they going to differentiate between good and bad – true or false – content.

What’s your take on the development?

Tags: bing, google search, real-time search, twitter

Google Plans More Changes To Google Search

Martin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:26:56 +0000

Google’s latest change to their search engine homepage was not welcome by all users. The increase of the font size was a shock to many who used to work with the same search engine page for the past years. Some users even got as far as claiming that they would move to another search engine if Google would not undo the changes. Soon userscripts and Firefox extensions were created that would bring the font size back to its old size.

Users who have been in shock then might want to stop reading at this point because it could get worse. Techcrunch was the first to write an article about Google’s new experimental homepage which only displays the Google logo and the search form on the page initially. No buttons, no other links.

Those links only become visible if a user moves the mouse in the window. Take a look at the video to see how the new Google search page could look like in the future:

Users with eagle eyes notice that there is no Search button at the end of the form and no I’m feeling lucky button either. It somehow does make sense from a usability standpoint. Many users simply type in the search query and hit enter on the keyboard to perform the search. Since they do not move the mouse at all for this operation they do not need the links on that page. Everyone moving the mouse might want to click on the links or use the mouse to perform the search.

It still could be very confusing for users and it is very likely that many will call tech support to ask if something is broken. You can also visit the custom search page if you want a barebones search interface.

Tags: Google, google custom search, google search, search engine

Perform Plain Google Searches Without Video, Image And News Results

Martin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:23:27 +0000

If you perform a Google search nowadays you get mixed search results. Google not only displays the first ten pages that is has in its index for the entered keyword but also image, video and news results. Sometimes ads are also added to the search results and placed on top of everything else.

Some search engine users might want a cleaner search results list without the additional search results that are offered by Google. The Digital Inspiration blog found an interesting alternative url to perform clean Google searches without video, image and news results.

Users who want nothing but the plain top 10 search engine results for a specific keyword can point their web browsers to http://www.google.com/custom to perform a custom search without the additional search results and advertisements that are added to the default Google search.

Google default search:

Google custom search:

It is also possible to add the custom Google search engine to the list of search provides. How this is done depends on the web browser that is being used. A quick overview of how this can be done can be found in the article about Google’s Sandbox search engine here at Ghacks.

Tags: Google, google custom search, google search, search engine

Google Search New Custom Search Options Added

Martin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:11:56 +0000

One of the latest trends in the search engine market seem to be custom search options, search filters and specialized search parameters. Google has introduced the search options in the main Google search engine a while ago. These were made up of advanced search parameters which have been accessible before (before starting search) and new filters. A click on the Show Options link on a search results page will open the available options in a sidebar.

Google has added new custom search options yesterday which are now accessible in Google Search. The following four options have been added to Google Search:

Past hour and Specific date range: With these tools you can choose to see only the most recent results in our index, or see results from a specific time period. This can be particularly helpful when you’re looking for the freshest information, or if you have some idea of when the information you’re looking for may have been published to the web.
More shopping sites and Fewer shopping sites: Now you can choose “More shopping sites” to show additional commercial pages and display prices from those pages right in the search results. If you’re doing product research and are not quite ready to make a purchase, you can choose to see “Fewer shopping sites” to filter out many of the commercial sites.
Visited pages and Not yet visited: Rediscover pages you’ve visited before by clicking “Visited pages,” or filter out the websites you’ve seen by clicking “Not yet visited.” This can be particularly helpful when you’re researching something you’ve already explored and you want to return right where you left off. To use this option you’ll need to be signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled.
Books, Blogs and News: Click on these filters to see results only from these sources. Putting these filters together, along with videos, forums, and reviews, allows you to quickly switch between different source types right on the search results page.

The past hour and specific date range parameter was accessible through url parameters before only. The inclusion in the search options makes it easier to use this parameter. Search engine users can now increase or decrease the amount of shopping sites that are displayed in the Google search results which can be very handy depending on the type of search performed.

Visited pages and not yet visited is only available for users who are logged into their Google account and have web history enabled. This can be interesting to continue a search at a later time without having to revisit pages that have been visited before. Books, blogs and news finally allows to refine search to only see results from these sources. They are similar to the previous source filters which allowed search engine users to only display results from sources that were videos, forums or reviews.

It would be interesting if Google would reveal statistics about these custom search options to see how many search engine users make use of them. Which leads to this question: Have you used the custom search options?

Tags: custom search, Google, google search, search engine, search options

Published Google Docs Documents To Appear In Google Search

Martin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:15:23 +0000

How would you announce a major change to a product that is likely going to affect a large userbase? Probably not in the same way that Google announced upcoming changes to their popular document management and editing platform Google Docs. In a recent post at the Google Docs Help Forum Marie, a Google employee, notified users of an upcoming change to Google Docs.

Google plans to index all published documents from Google Docs users if the documents are linked from a public (that means crawled by Google Bot) website. What this means is that Google Docs users might find their documents in the Google index even if they never had the intention for this.

The main problem with the procedure is the following: Google Docs users cannot explicitly block their documents from being indexed. Even worse is the fact that there is not an option to see if their documents have been publicly linked.

Only documents that have been explicitly published by selecting the ‘Publish as web page’ or ‘Publish/embed’ option and are linked from a public accessible website will be indexed by Google Search. The only option at this point in time is to undo this from the same menu.

A click on the Stop Publishing button will prevent that the document will be indexed in Google Search. It will also mean on the other hand that the document will no longer be accessible if it has been linked from a website.

Tags: documents, google docs, google docs indexing, google docs public, google docs publish, google search

Google Preview

Martin — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:56:13 +0000

Thumbnail previews in the Google and Yahoo search engines. Love em or hate em. Displaying thumbnails of the websites that are appearing in the search results of Google and Yahoo can contribute to the selection process of the search engine user and to the security of the web browsing experience.

Thumbnails allow search engine users to spot parked domains (usually in the form of domains that once had content which is still indexed in the search engines) but also websites that look like potentially risky to visit. It is obviously not always possible to evaluate a website from merely looking at its screenshot but it can aid the searcher in that process. This, combined with the information displayed as text, can help the user make a better decision on which websites to visit.

Google Preview is a Firefox add-on that will add those preview images not only to Google Search but also to Yahoo Search. It can furthermore add a popularity bar to each website that is displaying the website’s Alexa rank. The add-on can place a quick on and off button in the Firefox status bar to manage the add-on without having to open the options in the add-on’s menu.

Google Preview will insert sponsored links into some search results. This behavior can be deactivated in the program’s options. The add-on is available at the official Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: firefox, firefox-add on, google preview, google search, yahoo search

Google Fast Flip

Martin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:11:30 +0000

Google and Microsoft are constantly working on new services and features of their search engines. Microsoft introduced a visual search option in Bing yesterday which allowed search engine visitors to access and sort information of specific niches visually. Google introduced a new Google Labs feature called Google Fast Flip which is offering a new reading experience by combining elements of print and online articles.

Fast Flip combines the paged accessibility of print magazines with the near real-time refresh period of online magazines. The number of sources that have been added to Google Page Flip reads like a who is who of the most popular online news portals including the New York Times, BBC, Business Week or the Washington Post.

Several categories are available on the Google Fast Flip website including Science and Technology, Politics, Business and Sports.

A click on any individual article that is being displayed on the Google Fast Flip website is loading the interface for the individual news source. It is furthermore possible to access the categories directly which will combine the news of all news sources in that category.

Google Fast Flip basically embeds the article that has been published on the website of the news portal in their interface with options to “flip” to the next article in line just like in any print magazine. A side menu on the right displays thumbnails of the articles next in line with the option to open one of them with a mouse click.

The only other options currently provided next to the ones described are to email articles and to “like” the article which requires a Google account.

Google Fast Flip could be an interesting option for users who access the Internet from devices with smaller screens, e.g. tablet PCs, netbooks or smart phones.

Interested users can head over to the Google Labs website to take Google Fast Flip for a test drive.

Tags: google fast flip, google labs, google news, google search, news

Google Real-Time Search

Martin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:19:41 +0000

Google Search offers several options to limit the search results by a selected time frame. One is available in the advanced search parameters which allows users to search only in results that have been published or updated in the last year, month, week, day. The other becomes available in the newly added Search Options on the search results pages. Options there are similar with the addition of the recent time frame which seems to return results from the last 24 hours as well.

None of them can be considered real-time search results. Ran Geva posted an interesting article over at the Omgili blog which described a way to change the search parameters further to come close to real-time search results in Google. The default Google search result urls contain the qdr:x parameter if the results are filtered by time with x being replaced by d for days, we for weeks, m for months and y for years.

All he did was to replace the x value with n for minutes and s for seconds to get results that have been posted in the last 60 minutes or 60 seconds. It is furthermore possible to add a number behind the n or s value to customize the query further. The parameter qdr:n20 would search for results that have been indexed in the last 20 minutes.

The custom search parameter will be displayed as past minute or past second after performing the search and will persist even when conducing new Google searches. Seconds usually do not yield many results (if any at all) while minutes are usually well indexed already.

Steve Rubel acted quickly and created a bookmarklet to display the Google search results that have been indexed in the last ten minutes.

The bookmarklet can be changed easily to search a different time frame. All that needs to be done is to change the qdr=n10 part in the bookmarklet.

Tags: Google, google real-time search, google search, google search bookmarklet, real time, real-time search, search engine

Did Google Just Increase The Font Size Of Google Search?

Martin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:05:51 +0000

It is not often that Google changes something on the front-end of Google Search. The only element that the Google developers change regularly is the logo that adds a little bit of change to the search engine every other day or so. Changes to the rest of the front-end on the other hand are rare and it came as a surprise that the font size of the search form has been increased significantly. This has been tested with various web browsers like Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer which all confirmed the change. We first thought it was caused by a Firefox add-on or Greasemonkey script or related to the Firefox update yesterday but this is apparently not the case.

The font size of the Google search result pages on the other hand do not look like they have been changed as well. The new font size looks and feels alien on first glance which can be attributed to the fact that the font size has not changed in years.

Not everyone might experience the new font size. Reasons for this could be that Google is testing the font size in Google Search and showing it only to some of the search engine visitors. Another reason might be that Google is adjusting the font size based on the visitors screen resolution.

Let us know if you see the larger font size in Google Search as well and what you think of it.

Update: Users who prefer the old font size can install a Greasemonkey script to revert back to the old font size.

Tags: Google, google search, google search font, search engine

Why Google Search Results Can Be Different

Martin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:40:58 +0000

The results that Google search is displaying to a search engine user can be different depending on several factors including the web browser, geographic location, web history or or data center that is serving the search results. Search results can be different for the same user on the same computer depending on several factors that will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Data centers and location:

Google operates several data centers that serve Google search results. The main reasons for this are load balancing, access speed and better manageability of the infrastructure. Date centers are updated with new search algorithms and it can happen that some serve data based on the old algorithm while others already use the new algorithm to display data. The location of the data center in the world can also play a role in the search results that are displayed. It is also important to note that Google tries to serve country specific results to a user unless that user switches to another Google search engine (e.g. from co.uk to com).

Web History:

Users who are logged in while using the Google search engine will see different results than if they are logged out. This can be attributed to the fact that Google is monitoring search engine usage of logged in users. One purpose of this is to serve search results based on previous web searches by that user. This means that it is possible to see completely different search results if a user is logged in or not.

Recent searches:

Google may change the search results based on the searches conducted by a user in a period of 30 minutes. This feature is called recent searches. What it does is that searches are stored in a cookie for about 30 minutes giving Google access to recent searches. These recent searches may then be used to create custom search results pages based on these searches. These recent searches are displayed to both logged in and logged out users. Closing the web browser or clearing the cookies will remove the specific cookie so that Google will not have access to these recent searches if the user is not logged in.

We take into account whether a particular query followed on the heels of another query. Because recent search activity provides valuable context for understanding the meaning behind your searches, we use it to customize your results whenever possible, regardless of whether you’re signed in or signed out. In order to customize your results and show you the customization details, we keep recent searches in a cookie on your browser for approximately 30 minutes. After approximately 30 minutes, this cookie is removed from your browser. Completely closing your browser will remove this cookie immediately.

On rare occasions, recent searches may be kept on your browser for a different time duration as Google experiments with improving quality. In all cases, recent searches are not kept on your browser for more than 24 hours and the link to the search customization page will not be accessible after approximately 30 minutes from the time of the search.

Verdict: Google tries to provide custom search results to users of their search engine whenever possible. This raises a few concerns and some problems for users and webmasters. Users might not like the fact that Google is recording their search behavior. It is possible to reduce the amount of information that Google can record by searching without being logged in and clearing cookies regularly. Webmasters on the other hand have a harder time evaluating their website’s position in the search engine.

Tags: Google, google results, google search, google tips, google web history, googlerecent searches

Google Desktop: Search just about everywhere (especially Google)

Jack Wallen — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:48:05 +0000

Searching a PC filesystem is something people do on a daily basis. I am always shocked at how often I see people searching for files they have created and can not locate. There are a lot of tools out there to aid the user in their searching. For the Linux operating system there is Beagle, Catfish, GNOME Deskbar, the command line, and more. But many do not know of one other search tool that stretches beyond the desktop and into the web (and even into the users Gmail account). That tool – Google Desktop. The name of this tool is a bit misleading. Google Desktop is not a desktop. Google Desktop is a search tool, but one that is not limited to the desktop. A more fitting name would be something like Google Global Search…because that’s what it does, search about everywhere.

The Google desktop is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac. In this article I will discuss installation and use in the Linux operating system. In Linux, Google Desktop works in both the GNOME and KDE desktop environments. The installation is simple and the use is just as simple. Let’s take a look.

Getting and installing

You will not find Google Desktop in the repositories for your distribution. What you can do is head over to the Google Desktop Download page and click to download the version that is right for your distribution. Currently Google offers x86 and x86-64 RPMs (for Red Hat, Fedora, SuSE, and Mandriva) and x86 and x86-64 DEBs (for Debian and Ubuntu). Make sure you click on the correct type and architecture for your machine.

Most likely, when you click on the download link, your distributions package installer will open to install the file. If it does not just download the file and then install the package via command line. If you have to install via command line open up a terminal an issue a command like this:

For RPM:

rpm -ivh /path/to/download/*rpm

For DEB:

dpkg -i /path/to/download/*deb

Where /path/to/download is where you downloaded the file.

At the end of the installation a window will appear where you will have to agree to the license. This window will also give you some brief instructions on how to get started with the Google Desktop. Basically it instructs you to log out of your desktop and log back in. Once you have logged back in you only have to double click the Ctrl key to open up the Google Desktop tool.

Using Google Desktop

There are three ways to open up the Google Desktop tool:

Double click the Ctrl key.

Double click the Google Desktop icon in the system tray.

Click on the Google Desktop menu entry you will find in the Google Desktop sub-men of the Applications (or “K”) menu.

Figure 1

When you do open up the Google Desktop tool you will see the small window you see in Figure 1. To use this tool you simply enter your search string in the text area. By default the Google Desktop is set to

Figure 2

search the web. You can change this setting by right clicking the Google Desktop icon in the system tray (see Figure 2). When you right click this icon a menu will appear that contains a sub-menu titled “Default Search Type”. In this sub-menu are:

Web
Desktop
I’m Feeling Lucky
Images
Groups
News
Maps

Obviously this is geared toward Google.

Figure 3

When you enter a search term you will be presented with a partial listing of matching items on your PC. Figure 3 shows the results of searching for the string “linux” (no quotes).

What is really nice about this tool is when you click on a search result the appropriate tool will open. For example: If I were to select the first result in Figure 3 (google-desktop-linux – which is the Google Desktop deb file I just downloaded) it will open the package installer to install the tool.

Configuring the tool

When you right click the Google Desktop icon you can also select the Preferences entry. When you do this a browser window will open to a local preferences page for Google Desktop. In this window you can configure:

Local indexing.
Define local folders to include (or exclude) in searches.
Remove deleted items from search results.
Configure your Gmail account for searches.
Display results.
Change your hotkey.

Final thoughts

If you do a lot of searching on your desktop and the web, you should considering adding the Google Desktop into the mix. It’s easy to use, reliable, and searches just about everywhere (especially Google!)

Tags: desktop search, google desktop, google search, indexed searching

Compare Current And Upcoming Google Search Results

Martin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:05:57 +0000

Google is currently giving webmasters and other interested users a sneak peek of their upcoming search algorithm. Interested users can open a sandboxed search engine that is using the new Google search algorithm to test it. Google is mainly offering this new search engine to webmasters to test website rankings but it can also be used by other users as it seems to be faster and with less advertisements in its current stage.

Webmasters who want to compare search engine results can open the old and new Google search engine in two tabs to compare results. A more practicable solution is the use of a tool like Compare Google which displays search results on one page.

Users can enter a search phrase and an optional domain name on the search page. The tool will then display the old and new Google search results next to each other on the same page which makes it easier to identify ranking changes. Domain matches will be displayed in red so that ranking changes for a specific domain name can be identified on first glance.

Compare Google is a free online tool that can help webmasters find differences between Google’s old and new search result ranking algorithm.

Tags: caffeine, compare google, Google, google caffeine, google sandbox, google search, search engine

Add Google Sandbox Search Engine To Web Browsers

Martin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:56:45 +0000

You might have already heard about Google’s new sandbox search engine that is showcasing a new search infrastructure. Google invited webmasters to test the search engine and provide feedback which might indicate that the search engine algorithm is still tweaked. Users on the other hand can enjoy a Google search engine without advertisement and other annoyances that displays results faster and is said to list less spam results on the search engine results pages.

Some users might therefor like to switch to the new Google Search engine. The sandbox search engine can be opened directly by pointing the web browser to this url: http://www2.sandbox.google.com/

The manual approach works nicely but there is also the option to add the Google search engine to the web browser’s search box. The following guide will show how to add the new Google search engine to various web browsers:

Firefox

Firefox users can download the Add To Search Bar extension for Firefox. This add-on makes it super-easy to add new search forms to the search box in the Firefox web browser. All they need to do after installation is to visit the Google Sandbox search engine, right-click it and select Add to Search Bar from the context menu.

Opera

Opera users can right-click the Google search form to add the search engine to the Opera search box. The entry Create Search opens a menu that can be used to add Google Search to the search box. Users need to add a keyword for the search which will then appear as one of the search engines the Opera user can pick from.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome users need to right-click the address bar of the Google browser and select Edit Search Engines once they have opened the sandbox search engine. Google Chrome will automatically detect the new search engine and display it as one of the available search engines. The Google Sandbox search engine can then be added as a default search engine.

Internet Explorer 8

Internet Explorer 8 users need to open the following website in Internet Explorer [link]. The Google Search engine can be added by pasting the url of a TEST search in the Google Sandbox search engine in the URL field on the page and selecting a name for it. A click on Install will open a menu to add the Google Sandbox search engine to Internet Explorer.

Tags: firefox, google chrome, google sandbox, google search, google search engine, internet-explorer, opera, search engine

Test Google’s Next-Generation Search Engine Infrastructure

Martin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:48:06 +0000

Did you know that Google – like many other search engines – changes their search algorithms hundreds of times per year? Search results get tweaked all the time by the developers and it is most of the time behind the scene changes that are not revealed to the outside. Webmasters have learned to live with those changes and are able to spot some of them by observing the search engine rankings of websites. Webmaster forums do occasionally get flooded by webmasters if something drastic happens.

It is not often that a search engine invites users to test it’s search infrastructure. Google invited webmasters yesterday to test out their next-generation search engine infrastructure. Interested users can point their web browsers to http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ to perform a live test.

For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.

Webmasters usually have the advantage of being able to check how their websites rank for certain keywords which makes it easier for them to spot differences. Most users who commented in the original post at the Google webmasters website mentioned that search results in the new search engine would be more relevant. It was also noted that less spam websites would occupy a position on the first three search results pages.

A quick test for some of the keywords that Ghacks ranks for did not reveal any major changes. Please post your opinion about Google’s next-generation search infrastructure in the comments.

Tags: Google, google search, google search engine, keywords, search engine, seo, serps, webmaster

Google Adds Quick Search Options To Google Image Search

Martin — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:16:21 +0000

Google introduced a new feature to Google Search in last month that would allow users to quickly change several important factors of the search without having to configure them in advanced options or using a plugin or add-on to do so. The new features are available by clicking on the options link in the Google search results. They are displayed on the same page in a sidebar like interface and provide quick access to options that allow a user to change the time period of the search results, the type of results, view related searches or display more text in the description of each search result than usual.

This new type of comfortably accessing search options has now been brought to Google Images as well. Users who conduct a search in the Google Image search engine will now be able to click on the same Options link to access and change several important search parameters.

The options allow a search engine user to specify a certain size for the images that are displayed in the search results, change the type of image (face, photo, clip art or line drawing) or specify a dominant color. All of these options are also available in the advanced image search parameters. The benefit for the search engine user is that these options are now directly accessible.

Tags: Google, google image search, google images, google search, image search, search engine

Add Google Service Shortcuts To Firefox

Martin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:08:30 +0000

Google fanatics who regularly work with multiple Google services such as Google Mail Gmail , Google Reader, Google Docs, Blogger, Orkut and a few dozens more might find the Gbutts add-on for the Firefox web browser helpful. That is, if they have not created keyboard shortcuts for the Google services that they use or installed an add-on that is already providing quick access to the services that they use.

Gbutts displays a huge list of Google services after installation which can be used to select the Google services that should be displayed in Firefox. The services that have been selected are then available as a toolbar that has to be dragged and dropped to a Firefox toolbar. It can for example be placed next to the address field in the Firefox web browser to provide one click access to the selected Google services.

The selected services can either be displayed as buttons in the toolbar so that they can be clicked on instantly or as a dropdown menu which would save some space in the toolbar if more than a handful of services are selected. The dropdown menu would increase the click count to access one of the Google services to two however.

GButts (that means Google Buttons actually) could be an interesting add-on for users who work with multiple Google services throughout the day and want to access these services as comfortably as possible. Everyone else is probably better of using bookmarks or creating keyboard shortcuts to access the Google services.

Tags: blogger, firefox-add on, gmail, Google, google docs, google search, google services, orkut

Google Unified Search

Martin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:02:52 +0000

You need to search on multiple search engines if you truly want to research a search term, as opposed to simply finding a solution to it. Some users might think that searching in Google is enough to find all the relevant information about a search term and while that may be true more often than not it is a good practice to verify that all relevant websites have been discovered by cross-checking in other search engines.

Google Unified Search is a very interesting search add-on for the Firefox web browser. You might have read about add-ons that combine Google search results with those of other search engines such as Bing or Wolfram Alpha. Google Unified Search takes that concept a step further by integrating multiple search engines in Google results. It adds support for Bing, Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, Stumbleupon and Delicious in the Google search results.

Search results of one search engine besides Google Search are displayed at a time but it is possible to switch to the results of another one without having to reload the page. By default Google search results and Bing search results are displayed in the interface. A control in the top right corner makes it possible to switch the alternative search engine to another one.

A left click on a search result in the Google column will open the website as usual. A click on a result in the alternative search engine on the other hand will open the result just in the area of that search engine. Users who want to open the website normally will have to open it in a new tab or window instead.

Google Unified Search is an excellent way of displaying additional information about a search term in the Google search results.

Tags: bing, del.icio.us, firefox, firefox-add on, Google, google search, google unified search, stumbleupon, wikipedia, wolfram alpha

Two New Google Trends Features

Martin — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 11:17:06 +0000

Google Trends is a service by Google that displays the popularity of search terms in the Google search engine over time. Users can compare search terms with each other to get an understanding on how they have changed in the last years. Google Trends is also offering a top 100 lists of search terms that are popular right now and two new features that might be interesting to some users as well.

The first new feature is the ability to retrieve information about a domain or website. All that is needed to retrieve the information is to enter one or multiple domain names separated by comma in the Google Trends search form. Google will then display a graph detailing the popularity of the domain name over time.

There will also be information about the top 10 countries or regions that visited the domain or website, related websites and additional popular search terms the visitors searched for.

Google provides a link to the Google Ad Planner service which contains additional information about each website. This includes traffic estimates, popular keywords, advertising opportunities and ad specifications. It has to be noted that the values are estimates and not the real values of the website or domain. Webmasters who take a look at their own website will notice this immediately.

The second new feature is called Google Insights for Search which makes it possible to retrieve search trends for very specific queries. It is for example possible to get country specific top searches, compare related terms in a specific region in a country (e.g. laptops vs. netbooks vs. notebooks) or to find out when searches for a specific search term are the highest (to find out the period of the year with the highest demand).

These two new options of Google Trends can help researchers and marketers (but also interested users) in many situations from exploring new markets to discovering new product trends.

Tags: Google, google ad planner, google insights for search, google search, google trends, search trends

Google Books Rolls Out New Features

Martin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:23:52 +0000

Google Books is an ambitious project to offer which allows web users to search through more than seven million books online. Google just recently came to an agreement with rights holders that will allow them to expand the service further. Several new additions to Google Books have been announced yesterday that bring new features and functionality to the book searching process.

The changes are outlined in the official Google Booksearch blog. Here is a short rundown of all new features that have been introduced:

Embeds and links: It is now possible to embed previews or full views of books in third party websites. It is practically the same feature that allows Youtube users to embed videos on third party websites. Links can now also be saved or send to other users that bring them directly to the current active page of the book.
Better search within each book: Searching books has become more powerful for public domain and partner books as searches are not showing a better preview with easier options to jump straight to the part of the book the search term was found.
Thumbnail view: See thumbnails of all pages of a public domain or partner book. A click on a thumbnail will open that page directly.
Contents drop-down menu: A content drop down menu that allows users to jump straight to a chapter in the book or magazine.
Plain Text Mode: Books that are fully available are now easier viewable as plain text copies.
Page Turn Button and Animation: Clicking the page turn button will turn the page. This is an alternative to scrolling down manually.
Improved Book Overview Page: Additional information about books are displayed in the overview.

Some features that are rolled out sound quite interesting while others will probably not find such a huge following. It is however good to see that Google is improving their service further.

Tags: book search, Google, google books, google booksearch, google search

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