Recently, GoogleGoogle
made some changes to its search by changing a few of the factors that determine the order of the results of a search. (Prior to this change, I actually used to be the top result when searching “Jonah Price” now however its some Lawyer with a relatively empty ‘profile‘ on his law firm’s website.) Fresh from this big – though probably un-noticed by Joe Schmoe – change, Google is going to do it again, and this time Joe is going to know.
Google is going to modify its interface! They’ve mixed things up on the Home Page, and added a sidebar to the search results. Using the method published by Gizmodo and then republished by MashableMashable I was able to test out these changes.
WARNING: Changing back to the old interface requires certain technological skill. If you don’t feel comfortable with the idea of manually creating and deleting cookies, I’d advize you avoid experimenting with it. (Mashable’s guide includes instructions for undoing the changes, Gizmodo’s does not.)
The Home Page: In Yo-FACE!
The change of Google’s home page was what most shocked me; everything I’d read about the new interface talked about the results page I’d heard nothing of any modifications to Google’s starting location. With my cookies modified to alter Google to show me the new interface, I was presented with the following:
The search box is thicker from top to bottom, and shorter from left to right. The Google Logo is flatter, and has lost its drop shadow. And the buttons, which Google had recently begun to de-emphasize are now much LARGER, bold, and blue.
Google’s home page has rarely gone through such dramatic changes. Most any modification has always been as subtle as the over-all design it self, what happened that Google decided to get louder?
Search Results: The Sidebar
Enter your Query into the search box and press enter; in the new Google interface your search results come up along the right side of this side-bar. Selecting “More” expands the side-bar to include options such as Blogs, Newsnews
, Videovideo, Maps, Shopping, etc. Selecting any of these options modifies the search results to only include the content indicated by your selection.
Each category is accompanied by filters that show up at the bottom of the side-bar. “Everything” provides a filter that will omit results out of a certain time frame. “Videos” has filters for video length, film quality, closed captions, as well as time frame.
Nothing in the sidebar is new functionality, but it is perhaps, a little bit more useable. The likelihood of a casual Googler coming across these search tools is much larger in the format of this sidebar than in the old interface, where the options where a little less obvious, and took more clicks to get to.
Beta Blues
The new Google interface is right now only a test verision – that Google hasn’t even officially released – and as such, things aren’t streamlined. The “Images” and “Maps” categories on the sidebar currently direct you to the corresponding page in the old interface, but simply returning to the home page will get you back to the new interface.
Other Differences
There are a few minor differences at this point between results in the new interface and the old one, most of which are features from the old interface not carrying over into the new one. For instance, the video search results page has always included an embedded player on the right side of the page, used to play the discovered videos without leaving Google. The new interface no longer has the embedded player, but instead has Sponsored Links. The news results had a collapsed categories selection in top left of the typical results page. The new interface gives no categories selection. Of course, just because they aren’t there now doesn’t mean that Google doesn’t plan to implement them before its release. All we can do is wait and see.
What do you think? Is the new sidebar going to make your Googling a little easier? Is the new feel of the Home Page an improvement? Have you tested the new Google yourself? Leave a comment below.
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