search results posts

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, News, Web services, Google

Google updates mobile search

by Brad Linder Mar 28th 2007

Hot on the heels of Yahoo, Google has launched an update to its mobile search page.

There are a few major changes:

Customize your personal home page with gadgets including stock listings, news feeds, and movie listings.
Google's mobile search page now remembers your location. So if you were looking for movie listings in Des Moines, then decided to look for a barber shop, Google would show you barber shops in Des Moines first.
Rather than ask you to search images, news, web pages, etc, Google now searches various media and presents the images, web pages, or other information it thinks you're most likely looking for.

While that last bullet seems like a nice idea, it's kind of tricky to implement on a small screen. Images take up a lot of space, and if you're getting images, stock quotes, and web results when you just wanted a web page, that's a lot of clutter.

Google claims that the new interface is designed to reduce the number of clicks you'll have to make to find what you're looking for. But presenting different types of search results on one page means it could take a lot of scrolling to find the page you want.

Tags: google mobile search, GoogleMobileSearch, search engine, search results, SearchEngine, SearchResults

Filed under: Internet, Blogging

Ask.com adds official blog feeds to web results

by Ian Smith Feb 16th 2007

Ask.com has started including official blog feeds in their search results when you search for popular brands or web site names. The feed listing displays the last three or four posts on the website's official blog at the top of the results page, along with a link to the blog itself. The feed even appears above the sponsored listings.

When you search Download Squad, for example, you'll see our last three blog posts on the search page. Likewise a search for 37signals turned up a feed for their Signal Vs Noise blog, and searches for del.icio.us and reddit turned up their official company blogs. A search for digg, however, returned only popular front page links and no mention of Digg the Blog.

The one blog I was disappointed not to be able to find was the Ask.com Blog itself. The post detailing the flatline in office productivity when a particular Google product failed is enough on its own to warrant more prominent placement on the Ask.com network.

All and all I like this feature. Ask.com has been trying to push the innovation envelope for two years now and they have created a long series of Class A products along the way. Ask.com's blog search functionality is easily the best and most complete of all the major offerings, and it is great to see this feature find its way into other areas of the Ask.com website.

Tags: ask, ask.com, blog search, BlogSearch, rss feeds, RssFeeds, search, search results, SearchResults

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!

Search results are getting safer

by Chris Gilmer Dec 12th 2006

It seems like the world of search is getting a bit safer after all. SiteAdvisor has reported that search engines linked to 12% fewer sites that showed risky content, as deemed by McAfee. The report also found that search results by Google, AOL and Ask are far less likely to contain risky leads like MSN and Yahoo!. Some surprising results, though, were that paid results in search engines were actually responsible for linking out to 8% of risky content. McAfee SiteAdvisor used numbers and searches from a May 2006 survey, and completed the same search last month and found that AOL took the safest honors, while Ask showed the biggest improvements.

Tags: aol, ask, google, mcafee, microsoft, search, search engine, search results, SearchEngine, SearchResults, yahoo

Filed under: Business, Google

Kinderstart loses against Google

by Chris Gilmer Jul 14th 2006

In its famous cast against Google, claiming that Google dropped its PageRank down to zero, Kinderstart is out in the alley. They lost their case against Google claiming that Google manipulated search results, and took them out of the Google search results since they were a competitor.

It's over, and from now on we never have to hear about Kinderstart again. Maybe next time they will try to get some real publicity, instead of hogging and misusing court rooms.

Tags: google, google court, google kinderstart, google news, GoogleCourt, GoogleKinderstart, GoogleNews, kinderstart, law, search, search results, SearchResults

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Google

Google Zeitgeist Results for July 10th 2006

by Chris Gilmer Jul 13th 2006

I love checking out Google's Zeitgeist results. You can really find some truly amazing top ranked search terms for the month, and even the week. I especially like to see if any of my searches actually made it for the top results for that particular month or week.

The results are in, and again, there are some pretty interesting ones. Drop a note in the comments and let us all know if you were one of the ones that added to the top seach queries for the list! .. i didn't hit any this week.

1. zidane
2. july 4th
3. pirates of the caribbean
4. benjamin hendrickson
5. ken lay
6. keira knightley
7. north korea
8. ufc
9. jack sparrow
10. H5N1
11. fabio cannavaro
12. orlando bloom
13. justin timberlake
14. laura l. findlay
15. emmy nominations

And PS.. What's with "justin timberlake" being on that list? Isn't he over and done with?

Tags: google, google news, Google Zeitgeist, GoogleNews, GoogleZeitgeist, keywords, search results, search terms, SearchResults, SearchTerms

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, Web services, Google

Google testing new search results page

by David Chartier Apr 22nd 2006

It looks like Google is testing new features in their search results age. As you can see in the screenshot, there is a blue arrow that appears next to results now that, when twirled down, can reveal new information such as images, related links and even the ability to search the site - all before you actually click to visit it (could this possibly be a result of those Ask.com commercials with the monkeys?).

CyberNet, where I found these screenshots, welcomes these new features and I have to agree. It looks like a great, unobtrusive way to boost the power of their search without cluttering up the page with all sorts of buttons and do-dads. The one thing I'd like to see with this new results page is the ability to navigate results the same way one can navigate Gmail messages - shortcuts like j/k to move up and down the link results list and enter to open the link would be great.

Obviously, I don't know if these are real, or if they are - how CyberNet came across them, or even whether Google is offering some kind of sign-up list to get in on the beta action. But one thing's for sure: if this new search results UI is real, it will likely be one of the first new Google products/features of late to not debut as a beta.

[via Macworld]

Tags: arrow, feature, features, Google, information, search results, search site, SearchResults, SearchSite, update

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