Update 2/2/17: More than a month after we told you about this, Google has made this new feature official on its blog.
It seems like Google is always playing with its search interface both on desktop and mobile, and today one eagle-eyed Alex Chitu spotted another addition on mobile: search suggestions when searching for recipes. The feature lets you refine searches for a food you might want to make…
As 2016 comes to a close, many are taking the opportunity to look back at the year passed and all the events, announcements, people, and more that have made it great, or not so great. In 2016’s “Year in search,” Google has released a brief video montage of the year’s top events, and also several lists ranking the top searches for the year. Let’s take a look.
As we head into 2017, people are starting to form their New Year’s resolutions and Google today is rolling out a new feature to make it easier for its users to stick to their fitness-released goals. In a blog post, Google detailed a new Reserve with Google feature that will allow users to easily book fitness and wellness classes right from Google.
Google has never really been shy about getting its users to participate in the democratic process. But this election cycle, the Mountain View seems to have kicked it up a notch. We’ve found banners and reminders placed throughout all of its services, from YouTube to Google Maps to Google Now. Check out our gallery below of all the different places Google might be pestering you…
Google has for some time prioritized mobile-friendly sites in search results, but it will soon be taking an even bigger step. Search Engine Land reports a keynote address by a Google exec advising that the company will be creating a completely separate mobile index, which will take priority over the original desktop one.
Google is going to create a separate mobile index within months, one that will be the main or “primary” index that the search engine uses to respond to queries. A separate desktop index will be maintained, one that will not be as up-to-date as the mobile index.
The plan reflects the fact that the majority of search traffic now comes from mobile devices, but the presentation raised as many questions as it answered, notes the site …
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump today blamed Google for making bad news about his opponent harder to find via Search. Speaking during a rally in Waukesha, Trump remarked that “Google search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton.”
Video: Donald Trump just accused Google of "suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton" pic.twitter.com/88TSU5VzJN
— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) September 29, 2016
Google is seemingly testing a new feature in search: the ability to quickly find locations nearby with a search query. It doesn’t appear to be working for everyone, but apparently when some search for “**” (don’t forget to drop the quotation marks), users get a list business that are physically near to you…
If you’ve ever Googled for song lyrics, you know what a messy experience it can be – half the sites proving to be just links to other sites, others looking really sketchy. For those in the US, though, things should be much simpler. Google has licensed lyrics from LyricFind, which in turn licenses them from labels, so that a search for a song title with ‘lyrics’ on the end should generate an immediate link.
Of course, Google is arriving rather late to the party …
Google Trends tells the story of the result of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. Trending searches include a 500% spike in ‘buy gold,’ a doubling in searches on getting an Irish passport and some people apparently wondering what just happened …
From sport results to maps, Google Search now shows a lot more than just 10 blue links. Especially useful on mobile, Knowledge Graph aims to show relevant information without requiring users to click through a webpage. In an update rolling out over the next few days, Google will now surface possible medical conditions when you search for symptoms.
Some stories just make you grin. The BBC reports that Google has thanked a British grandmother who conducted the politest ever search after thinking that the answers were provided by a person.
Accelerated Mobile Pages launched in Google Search with support for ads earlier this year, and now the AMP team has shared a blog post detailing the future of ads on the platform. In the blog post, the AMP team explains that it has four central principles when it comes to ads:
Back at 2014’s I/O, Google unveiled a new all-encompassing design language called Material Design, aimed at drastically reshaping the look of everything Google.
While its first implementations were seen — understandably — on Android, it took a little longer for the transition to take place on the web; we are now seeing Chrome being reworked under Material’s principles, and it now appears that the company’s stronghold, Search, may be on the verge of its long overdue redesign …
Update: In a blog post, Google details new features currently available in English and rolling out soon to other languages. Now on Tap now officially works in the camera app and for images. For instance, users can open the camera app and initiate Now on Tap to identify landmarks. It can also be used in apps like Pinterest to identify artwork.
Rolled out last night to all users, Now on Tap has a new interface and the ability to manually select text from anything in a screenshot to perform a search. Due to a number of factors, Now on Tap has yet to become a hit feature and today’s update is a meaningful change to the product.
Google appears to be A/B testing a new look for desktop search results. The redesign takes many cues from mobile and places search results in individual cards. However, the bigger change displays Knowledge Graph cards inline and thus prioritizes them.
For many, many years, whenever you search for anything on Google, chances are that you see a sea of blue unread links fill your web browser. Unless you’re in China, that is, in which case you see red ones.
Still, blue web links have been a feature within Google Search for a long time. So it comes as something of a minor shock to see that the company is now testing a new color: black.
Over the past couple of years, Google has been implementing a number of AI, or machine-learning technologies, in to its products. Whether it’s intuitive search within the Photos app, better automatic thumbnail creation in YouTube, ‘Smart Reply’ in Inbox, or just straight-out beating an 18-time Go world champion, its artificial intelligent brains are being developed and honed.
With all of its incredible talent, apparently, there’s still work to be done when it comes to results from neural networks sounding and looking like naturally spoken or written human language. The solution: feeding it steamy romance…
In an updated post on the Windows blog, Microsoft has confirmed that it is removing the option to use any browser other than Edge, and any search engine other than Bing, as an integrated option within Cortana. That means if you want to use Cortana for launching web pages or for performing searches in Windows 10, you’ll no longer be able to use Google Chrome or Google Search.
Google seems to be under fire lately. Less than a week from the European Union’s charges against the Mountain View company regarding supposedly unfair practices towards its hardware partners, TIME is reporting that the famous stock photo agency Getty Images is now accusing the technology giant of “promoting piracy” with its Images search engine…
Following big Google Cloud announcements at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show earlier this week, the company is announcing a new ad platform to monetize and personalize video content, as well as that live TV listings are coming to Search results.
Earlier this week, podcast listening, subscribing, and syncing features were finally added to Play Music. While that app update is still rolling out, the Google app for Android has just gained similar podcast listening features.
As previously rumored, in a press release published today, the EU has filed yet another antitrust movement against Google. This time it centers on Android, the company’s wildly successful mobile operating system, which the EU thinks is in breach of the continent’s antitrust rules. In short, the European Commission thinks Google is using Android to deliberately restrict other mobile operating systems, browsers and search engines.
With imminent troubles looming in Europe, Canada just closed its three year investigation into anti-competitive practices involving Google’s search and advertising business (via The Verge). The country’s Competition Bureau ultimately “did not find sufficient evidence” that Google’s practices harmed local rivals.
During elections and other major events, Google Trends usually posts interesting statistics and data visualizations based on search results. While not necessarily reflective of today’s New York primary, Bernie Sanders is leading (via The Hill) Hillary Clinton in search interest and other related terms.
