Flurry of activity at Google search
Google has been adding features to its search facility, perhaps in answer to Microsoft’s Bing. Whether it’s pressure from Bing or whatever, there have been a series of recent announcements from Google. They’ve come in rapid succession and I may have missed one but here is a summary of the activity I’m aware of.
I’ve mentioned two new features previously, the addition of anchor links and making it easier to search forum posts or discussions.
Another announcement was on Monday:
You might already be familiar with Hot Trends, which lists the fastest rising searches on the web at any given hour. Now, when you search Google.com and your query matches one of the top 100 fastest-rising search terms, we’ll show you a graph at the bottom of page, with more information — like how popular the query is, how fast it’s rising over time, and other useful data.
Then yesterday came some new search options:
Today, we’re announcing nine new Search Options tools: past hour, specific date range, more shopping sites, fewer shopping sites, visited pages, not yet visited, books, blogs and news. These features have been rolling out gradually and will be available globally in English by the end of the day. You can try them yourself by searching Google and clicking “Show options” in the blue bar just under the logo.
Some of these new search options are quite welcome. Personally, I like the one that limits shopping sites. Google Operating System describes this filter:
If you don’t want to see shopping sites in the list of search results, click on “fewer shopping sites” and Google will remove the results from sites like Amazon, BestBuy, eBay. Google also offers the option to see “more shopping sites” in an interface optimized for price comparison.
Isn’t competition grand? A small Bing cloud on the horizon and Steve Ballmer jouncing around bad-mouthing them got them stirred up at Google.
Added later: Search guru Danny Sullivan has an extensive article on new Google features at Search Engine Land.
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