Google Search Now Offering Page Previews And Other Filters

Martin Brinkmann
May 11, 2010
Updated • Mar 18, 2015
Google
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Not every Internet user is happy with the redesign of the Google search interface and the increasing number of extensions, userscripts and other solutions to bring back old Google is a clear indicator for that.

The left sidebar does on the other hand offer several new features that have not been there before when using Google Search.

If you look at the new search sidebar you notice that it is divided into three different sections; Search source filters, filters that manipulate the search results and the something different section that links to related searches.

Update: Note that Google modified the interface of search results pages again in recent time. The screenshots below don't show the latest interface but a previous iteration. Most of the filters are not provided anymore with the exception of the first filter list you see on the screenshot below (in red) which is still available.

Some features, like filtering results by time are also still provided but the majority of results filters listed below are not. End

If you take a closer look at the search results filters you notice several interesting filters at the end of the listing.

It is there possible to only display sites with images, reduce or increase the number of shopping sites in the results, enable page previews and translated search.

Standard results

This is the standard search results listing. A mix of websites, images, news and other sources on the same page.

google standard search

Sites with images

Will only display sites that contain images. There seems to be a minimum image requirement of three.

sites images

Fewer shopping sites

Removes most shopping site related links from the search results including Google's own "shopping results" block.

fewer shopping sites

More shopping sites

The exact opposite of fewer shopping sites. Will list many shopping sites and less regular results.

shopping sites

Page previews

Displays thumbnails of every page in the search results. The thumbnails are placed on the right side of the results.

page previews

Translated search

Offers to translate the results into another language. Controls are displayed on top of the search results. Uses Google Translate for the translation.

search translate

The new search filters can be helpful at times. The biggest problem we see is that they cannot be set as permanent filters.

Are you using the search filters of the new Google sidebar?

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Comments

  1. Alec_Burgess said on May 12, 2010 at 9:12 am
    Reply

    I have google set to display 100 results at a time. Google images displays only 20 at a time regardless of that setting.

    With 1MB/sec max download display is effectively instantaneous.

    Using sites with images still displays 100 results at a time but in Google Chrome (5.0.396.0 dev) it takes a long, …, long time to display … usually resulting in the [Do you want to kill this page] popup

    In Firefox 3.5 (lots of addons) the Sites with images is MUCH more responsive.

    Possibly its one or more of the Google Chrome extension I’ve installed?
    – AdBlock – Version: 1.4.27
    – AdSweep – Version: 1.6.17.2
    – AdThwart – Version: 0.8.17
    – All Search – Version: 1.2
    – AniWeather – Version: 0.6.19.6 (Disabled)
    – Chrome Flags – Version: 1.1 (Disabled)
    – Chrome Gestures – Version: 1.12.0 (Disabled)
    – Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller – Version: 1.0.16
    – Cooliris – Version: 1.11.7.33611 (Disabled)
    – Del.icio.us Tools – Version: 0.4
    – Explode – Version: 0.8.1
    – Frame two pages – Version: 1.6.1
    – Google Image Search Direct Links – Version: 1.0
    – Google Quick Scroll – Version: 1.2.1
    – Google Similar Pages beta (by Google) – Version: 0.5.4.7
    – IE Tab – Version: 1.4.30.4
    – IMDB plus – Version: 0.7
    – Link Icon – Version: 1.2.1
    – Linky – Version: 1.0.2 (Disabled)
    – Mouse Stroke – Version: 1.9.4.4 (Disabled)
    – Notifier for Google Wave – Version: 3 (Disabled)
    – Readability Redux – Version: 1.1.2
    – RSS Subscription Extension (by Google) – Version: 2.1.1
    – Select To Get Maps – Version: 1.1.1
    – Slideshow – Version: 1.2.5 (Disabled)
    – Smooth Gestures – Version: 0.13.2
    – SmoothScroll – Version: 0.6.1 (Disabled)
    – Snap Links Lite – Version: 1.2.4
    – Speed Tracer (by Google) – Version: 0.13 (Disabled)
    – TabJump – Intelligent Tab Navigator – Version: 0.7.1
    – Turn Off the Lights – Version: 1.7.9.17
    – Ultimate Chrome Flag – Version: 0.2.16

    Anyone having/not having this problem?

  2. ewallpaperstock said on May 11, 2010 at 7:25 pm
    Reply

    more friendly the new interface of Google Search.

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