Googling For The Future
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009Today Google announced that it was enhancing it’s search results with more options to pare down your results. The options are definitely quite interesting. You can now…
- …filter results by videos, forum-mentions, and reviews.
- …filter results by recency.
- …show more text and pictures along with their normal search listings.
- …see related searches more easily through text links and their “Wonder Wheel”.
- …and filter results by a timeline of news.
Phew! A lot changes for the dominant search player. It seems like they are trying to get ahead of the search game before real time searches (like Twitter) and natural-language searches (Wolfram Alpha) become more popular? Perhaps their recency filter might eventually incorporate real-time conversation like Twitter or Facebook’s feed or their Wonder Wheel will help people find what they are looking for faster.
One thing is for certain is that web developers might have to think in different ways in order to get as many eyeballs still on their site. If you can filter by results that have been indexed or changed within the past 24 hours, will your first result first page search result still always be number one? Will you need to manage your forum mentions more closely in order to protect your brand now that its conveniently packaged with the touch of a link?
Would love to hear your thoughts on how this might impact the future of natural search listings and how you might design things differently going forward.
