Google Search

Have you been redirected to the encrypted Google search page this morning? Worry not, you should be honored for having participated in “an experiment”, the Google Operating System blog reports. The search monster is sending “some percentage of Chrome 14 users” to the more secure, SSL-enabled search page, which is still in beta. The reason?

They are testing out the new functionality of the SSL page, which now sports nearly all of the features of its non-SSL counterpart. Previously, encrypted search lacked many features of the regular search page, such as Image Search, Google Instant and Instant Preview. The encrypted search page still lacks navigation links and Google Maps doesn’t support SSL yet.

As Google works to bring feature parity between SSL and non-SSL search pages, eventually users might just tick a check box in their search settings to opt-in to SSL search. SSL, a secure communications protocol, ensures that anything that gets sent between your browser and Google’s servers (such as your query and search results) is encrypted to prevent eavesdropping.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5RZOU6vK4Q]

Google’s been tight-lipped about the intricate, intertwined algorithms that make their search machine tick and we can only speculate how they rank web pages beyond the commonly known guidelines for web developers. A whole cottage industry is thriving out there, built on the presumption that one can reverse-engineer parts of the Google code so to affect search results and ensure the best possible placement. While Googlers aren’t about to spill the beans on the industry’s most closely-kept secret, they did reveal a couple of tidbits in a video published over at the official Google blog.

“While an improvement to the algorithm may start with a creative idea, it always goes through a process of rigorous scientific testing”, the company wrote in the post. “Simply put”, Google explains, “if the data from our experiments doesn’t show that we’re helping users, we won’t launch the change”. For example, did you know that the Google search algorithm is made up of several hundred different “signals” that collectively determine the results? Surprisingly, just last year Google perfected its search engine with more than five hundred algorithm changes, most of them rolled out quietly. More tidbits in that YouTube video, embedded above.

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In its never-ending battle against annoying spammers who pollute our search results, the Dublin, Ireland arm of the Internet search giant published job openings for spam fighters who are fluent speakers of Arabic, German, Russian and Spanish, indicating the rising spam threat in those markets. The job listing requires would-be candidates to have BA/BS degree, “preferred with a strong academic record”, excellent web research and analytical skills and experience with HTML and working for an Internet company.

If terms such as ‘WHOIS’ or ‘DNS’ mean nothing, don’t even apply as understanding of firewalls, IP addresses and name servers is a must as you’ll be directly impacting the quality of Google’s search results through search quality evaluation. Here’s from Google:

You will be working on the cutting edge of search and the forefront of the web ensuring quality information is provided to millions of internet users, and you will be expected to keep pace with constant change in a fast-paced work environment, bringing innovative ideas to improve access to relevant information on the web. You are a web-savvy individual who is a take-charge team player, as well as a quick learner and strongly interested in providing a better search experience for Google users.

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Google and ESPN have announced they are now offering sports scores, presented through microdata, straight into Google Search results. For now, Google and ESPN will only be offering Baseball, but more sports will be following very soon. A simple search of “Baseball Scores” returned the following results.

Besides making the obvious search, you can also search specifically for teams, players, and scores. The results include up-to-date game scores and statistics, and link off to content on ESPN.
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We already showed you how to give Google’s new search UI a try, but yesterday The Next Web discovered that you can also give Google’s new sign-in page a try. The new sign-in page goes along with the rest of Google’s general new design we’ve been seeing spring up across products, ever since the launch of Google Plus. Enabling the new design is much easier than what we showed you yesterday. You could just go and click the option to preview the new sign-in page, but here’s the link to make things easy.

While there isn’t much of a change, we do like the new colors and general spacing.

Google has been on a role rolling out new designs across all of their products, including Google Search. Techno-Net (via Google Operating System) has discovered that with a small cookie change you can try the latest version of Search. The new version features a less uncluttered look, but we’ve read it isn’t as fast as the version you know and love. Head on past the break to see how it’s done.

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[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grr1arPxX0E”]

To go along with their new expanded sitelinks, Google is testing infinite scrolling in Google Search. This new feature will allow you to view all of your search results on one page, but you do have to click a “more results” button. Google has already announced this feature in Images, so there is a chance this could stick around in Search. Google told Search Engine Land, “Google is constantly experimenting with new features.” (Waebo via The Next Web)

Today on their Search Blog, Google announced a new layout for sitelinks under Search results. The new update brings an expanded look for sitelinks — showing the title, URL, and a snippet of text from the site. Instead of eight sitelink results, a site can now have twelve.

Sitelinks will now be full-size links with a URL and one line of snippet text—similar to regular results—making it even easier to find the section of the site you want. We’re also increasing the maximum number of sitelinks per query from eight to 12.

Sitelinks will also be using a similar algorithm to regular search results, to provide a higher-quality list of links. The update will be rolling out to users over the next couple of days.

Social postings from Twitter, Youtube, and Flickr have appeared in Google Search for quite awhile, and with the launch of Google+ it was only a matter of time until public Google+ posts were appearing too (as seen above). Google announced via their blog Friday that public Google+ posts are now available in Search.

Note, ONLY public posts will be appearing — private posts will not. To see this feature you will need to have a Google+ account and be logged in to your Google account.
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The new search layout on the Motorola Xoom. Web (left) and image (right) results. Click for larger.

Google last month announced a bunch of enhancements to its search engine and today the company confirmed via a blog post an overhauled layout on tablets, which the blog Digital Inspirations leaked two days ago. From now, searching on your tablet by visiting the main Google search takes you to an overhauled search results page. It’s surprising it took Google so much time to optimize the search experience on slates, really. You can tell the new layout is easier on the eyes and we are love in love with the bigger buttons. Now you can finally hit the controls on smaller tablets without having to sand down your finger first.

Our favorite: The big, unobtrusive buttons right below the search box for quick access to specific search silos, such as web, images, news and so forth. Also noteworthy, the image search results page now appears way more attractive due to larger previews and continuous scroll – just go to the bottom and a new batch of images loads automatically. The new layout will be available on iPad and Android Honeycomb 3.1 tablets and in 36 languages “in the coming days”, everyone’s favorite search monster noted.

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Digital Inspiration reports Google is testing out a new search page design created specifically for tablets, but likely to make its way onto desktops as well. The new tablet-optimized search home page puts forth a cleaner layout with new visual features recently applied to Gmail, Calendar and their other properties. Old graphics is gone and replaced with a Google+-like appearance, along with the black Google navigation bar at the top that recently appeared on desktop.

A brand new thing: The top row of icons for filtering down search results by type (images, news, web, etc.) has been replaced with the traditional lefthand column with search tools, still present on desktop. Does this change signal the new design for search silos across desktop and mobile? If Google’s recent focus on consistency in design is an indication, than the answer should be a resounding ‘yes’. Google has not officially rolled out the new design, but we’re expecting them to make an announcement soon. Another screenshot right below the fold.

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IntoMobile is reporting an AT&T varient of the Verizon Droid Bionic might just be on its way. If you don’t know what you’re looking for the above image doesn’t exactly tell you much. IntoMobile explains:

The small code following the version number is what to look for. You can see three mentions of the MB860 and one of the MB865. Well, a quick Google search for MB865 will return results for the Motorola Atrix 4G but if you do a search for MB865, you’ll get results for the Droid Bionic.

The GSM Bionic will likely be a slightly bigger version of AT&T’s popular Atrix.  The Atrix already has the qHD display and dual core processor.  It also got a Gingerbread update this weekend.

Google is celebrating the 113th birthday of sculptor Alexander Calder (Wikipedia article) with an interesting Google Doodle on the main search homepage. Conveniently, it is a digital take on one of Calder’s famous mobile sculptures and interactive, too: You can rotate it around in three dimensions by pointing your mouse at one of the edges until the pointer changes to the drag handle.

The digital sculpture reacts differently depending on which piece of it you “grab” to rotate the whole thing. Notice how it also casts a realistic shadow below the search box, in real-time. Calder is well-known for the Cirque Calder, a miniature sculpture of a working circus he created to fit inside a suitcase. He went later on to perfect the art of mobile sculpting using common materials such as wire, string, pull toys and more.

via the official Google blog

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If found in their data center’s servers, Google will now notify you if you have malware running on your computer when making a Google Search. Google announced the new feature today, and hopes to use their vast wealth of information to make this effective. Google explains:

Recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers. After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software, or “malware

Obliviously this won’t pick up every single piece of malware out there, but it’s a nice little addition to an already great search platform.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu-YsZNpkZs]

Remember WDYL, the Google-owned site affectionately named What Do You Love? It rolled out quietly last month to no fanfare as a glorified Google.com frontend to present search results across numerous Google products with pretty layouts. It has gotten some press time before most folks forgot about it so Google made this little video to remind us of the project and showcase the power of HTML5 and Google search.

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Google said in a tweet four hours ago that they have temporarily disabled  a dynamic stream of real-time content in people’s search results until they figure out how to bake this functionality into their latest social service dubbed Google+:

We’ve temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We’re exploring how to incorporate Google+ into this functionality, so stay tuned.

Trying to access the google.com/realtime web page produces a 404 page not found error. Google real-time was conceived two years ago as a way to enhance people’s search results with the latest news headlines, blog posts and updates from Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed and other social sites. With the Google+ service the company has upped the ante in the social department so it makes sense to use Google+ to have one place to connect with your friends, share photos, links and other content as well as track updates from other social services across the web.

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A lot of potentially far-reaching developments happening right now in China where Baidu, the dominant search engine, is secretly cranking up a mobile operating system of its own. It’s based on – of all things – Android and code-named Qiushi, which means fruits in autumn, explains TechNode quoting a local report by Chinese-language TechWeb.

Baidu says it’s just “an under-developing mobile ad product”, but considering that several Android-built mobile operating systems already exist in the country (i.e. Xiaomi Tech’s MIUI and DianxinOS) – and taking into account that Android benefited a certain search giant in ways more than one – it isn’t so far-stretched a notion that Baidu is leveraging Android to attack mobile on all fronts and further reduce Google’s share of China’s search-based revenue. Should Google be worried? Read on…

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Google has updated  its Goggles app for Android with support for the Russian language. The software also features a handy Google Maps integration and the little things such as the ability to view your search history on a map or the ability to automatically copy your findings to system clipboard. Since 2009, Google has only supported languages that use Latin characters. The latest update brings support for Cyrillic characters, making the Russian language one of the new options.

The new search history feature is especially useful: It lets you visualize on a world map the places where you’ve been (and searched using the Goggles service). The world map overview of your history is in addition to the standard list view. Lastly, Google wants to make it easier to share our findings by allowing people to opt-in to have their findings automatically added to the clipboard for easy and fast sharing. The update is available on Android Market.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtELiwNmTSc]
Some people are claiming they’ve been participating in a design experiment by Google related to the look and feel of the search results page. Although we cannot tell whether the above clip is genuine, it sure strike us as the familiar Google search results. Looks quite nice and a bit easier on the eyes, too.
Notice how the links in the lefthand pane, which provide shortcuts to individual search silos, appear in gray rather than in multiple colors? By the way, where did the search button go? The “I’m feeling lucky” thing is also MIA.

via Search Engine Roundtable
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If you’re concerned about data people see when they google your name, you should check out a new section in your Dashboard, aptly named ‘Me on the Web’. It’s a one-stop shop for your online identity needs, Google says, stressing the section helps you “understand and manage what people see when they search for you on Google”. ‘Me on the Web’ features a useful at-a-glance overview of all the outbound links published on your Google profile, the stuff like your social profiles, YouTube and Flickr accounts and so on. There are also links to Google help files explaining how to manage your online identity and how to remove unwanted content.

More importantly, you can create custom search alerts for your own name to receive email notifications when your personal data is posted publicly. You can also set up additional alerts for your specific personal data, such as telephone number and address. In the example below, I’ve set up an alert for my author byline, allowing me to track in near-real-time when my posts go up or other people mention my name in references to my articles. You could have created those alerts before in Google Alerts, but now everything is in one place, which should appeal to non-techies.

Not sure how this one went unnoticed, it’s a lovely tweak to Google’s mobile search page on iOS and Android devices. It is also noteworthy as Google rarely alters the look of its mobile landing page. Now, when you visit google.com from your mobile browser, you’ll notice four big icons sitting right below the search field: Restaurants, Coffee, Bars and More (which includes shops, ATMs, fast food and attractions).

Each icon takes you to a location-based listing with corresponding places, taking the pain out of finding the nearest place to eat or have a quick drink, wherever you happen to be. You can browse places in either list or map view, as well as check photos, reviews, business phone numbers and star ratings from credible sources such as Trip Advisor.

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