Last week, Google Search began rolling out a redesign that rounded the UI of its mobile website. Today, that same redesign is more widely rolling out to Android, along with deeper changes to how the full app looks and operates.
Google’s Knowledge Graph contains a multitude of facts on people, locations, entertainment, and more. These useful cards in Search results are now adding information on media publications and newspapers.
Popular Times in Google Search and Maps uses crowdsourcing to conveniently determine whether locations, like stores or movie theatres, are busy. As such, users can use this information to better schedule their visits. Now, the feature is adding wait times for your favorite restaurants.
Last month, the Google app began testing a rounded UI for both the Feed and Search results. This afternoon, that latter design is widely rolling out to Google’s mobile site for both Android and iOS devices.
Searching, especially on mobile, is increasingly based on your location. For Google Search and Maps, specific service is determined by the country you’re in. However, in a change today, country-specific services no longer require that users visit a regional version of Google.
For the past several months, Google Search has been A/B testing several new designs. An update to Image Search is now rolling out on the mobile web (via Android Police) and features a brighter interface and rounded buttons.
Google’s rumored Snapchat Discover and Instagram Stories competitor for publishers could launch as soon as this month. Rumored to be built on Accelerated Mobile Pages, it will allow sites to surface video and other rich content right in Search. In the mean time, Google has been spotted testing renaming AMP labels in Search results.
It looks like Siri and Google are friends again and Bing is in the rear view mirror. In a major shift, Apple is changing its search results provider for Siri and Spotlight on iOS and macOS from Microsoft’s Bing to the vastly more popular Google.
TechCrunch says the change has started to roll out today (it’s also live for me) and should be in effect for all users by the end of the day. For users, this means Siri and Spotlight will now provide the same search results as Safari by default (and in a lot of cases show better search results).
The public library continues to be a wonderful resource, with many adapting to this day and age with various digital resources. As such, many offer ebooks in addition to their traditional counterparts. Google is now helping surface these online versions by showing ebooks that are available to borrow from your library.
Quite a few things happened in 1997. Titanic won 11 Oscars, WebMD went online for the first time, The Spice Girls had a number one hit, and yours truly was born. However, bigger than all of these things, the domain “Google.com” was officially registered.
Back in June, the Wall Street Journal shared that Google traffic to its sites fell after ending the “first click free” practice of offering full access to articles behind a paywall. The program has always been a source of consternation for publishers and Google is finally ending the practice.
The Google Search Knowledge Graph is remarkably handy for getting a quick summary on media, a business, or a person, as well as other pertinent details. Cards for movies and books are now being revamped with a tab-heavy design that highlights more information.
If you’re a business-owner, chances are good your company is listed in Google Search results giving better visibility to existing and potential customers. Today, Google announced that it’s revamping the way that these business listings are edited — allowing users to make changes and updates directly within Google Search.
Google Search is an immensely powerful tool. You can use it to check movie times, self-diagnose what that rash on your arm is, learn how to cut an onion without crying, and virtually anything else that comes to mind. Among everything that we use Google Search for, one of the most popular search types are “how to” questions. Google recently looked further into the “how to” queries on its search engine, and the results are quite interesting.
The latest version of the Google app rolled out to iOS yesterday with a number of new features centered around making Search faster. “Instant answers” are already found on the web and provide the results of basic queries without having to complete a search, while the Google app will now list trending searches around you.
Google is updating its travel tools today with a focus on reducing costs and making planning easier. Google Flights will now suggest travel and booking dates that are less expensive, while Search will recommend nearby airports and hotels that might be cheaper.
Since 2012, Google Knowledge Graph cards have grown to include a large corpus of useful information. Last year, Search began rolling out health-related cards that list symptoms and the usual treatments. Google is today adding a clinically validated screening questionnaire to the Knowledge Panel on depression.
While Google Trends only provides a relative snapshot of people’s searches, it is nevertheless a quite interesting view into human behavior. At times, said behavior can be quite frustrating as evident by yesterday’s peak of “eyes hurt” searches on Google.
With the next billion users coming from developing markets, Google has taken to creating apps specially tuned for those users. The latest is called Search Lite and offers a lighter, more focused version of the main Google Search experience.
Over the years, Google has added a number of features based on crowdsourced data to improve local discovery in Maps and Search. The latest effort involves adding a question and answer section directly to listings in Maps and mobile Search.
For Google, being the default search engine on iOS is highly lucrative, with Apple’s mobile devices predicted to contribute approximately 50% of Google’s mobile search revenue. So much so that one financial firm estimates that Google will pay Apple $3 billion this year to remain the default.
Google has long possessed a number of cooking-related tools, including a recipe-optimized Search functionality. Back in April, the Assistant on Google Home added the ability to verbally walk users through creating a dish. The Google Feed is now gaining more food-related smarts as its built-in ‘Cooking’ feature sees a wider rollout.
On the heels of a new feature being tested within the YouTube application, we have spotted another that places Google search results within search results…
A day after news surfaced that Google was interested in buying Snap last year, a new report notes that Google is developing a “Snapchat-like media content” format based on AMP. Working with several partners, it will allow publishers to create Discover-like visual content similar to Stories.
