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Looking to increase its vice-like grip on the Internet search market, Google has this week held its second Searchology event in order to provide general users, business partners and customers with an insight into the company’s ongoing search-based advancements.
Teaching the old search dog new tricks. Image: Google.
According to California-based Google, it has spent a great deal of time working on how to better understand the wide range of information available on the Web and how to help users find more useful content, do more useful things with it, and quickly connect them to the information “nuggets” they need at any given moment.
To achieve this, Google is introducing a new set of features called “Search Options,” which involve a collection of tools that allow users to “slice and dice” search results, create different views to find what they need faster and easier, and also answer that niggling question of “what query should I ask?”
“Let’s say you are looking for forum discussions about a specific product, but are most interested in ones that have taken place recently,” outlined Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience at Google. “That’s not an easy query to formulate, but with Search Options you can search for the product’s name, apply the option to filter out anything but forum sites, and then apply an option to only see results from the past week.”
“Just last week, at our Shareholders’ Meeting, I has a woman ask me why she couldn’t organize her results by time, with the most recent information appearing first,” added Mayer. “‘Come back Tuesday,’ I wanted to say!”
Another major feature offered up through Search Options is connected to solving the problem of which result offers the best information in relation to the core query, or, as Google puts it: “how can we help you make the best decision about where to click?”
Referred to as “snippets,” the information samples that sit beneath Google search results are about to become more in-depth. These “rich snippets” will extract more and display more useful information from relevant Web pages in order to give the user a better sense of the content they’ll receive upon clicking.
“For example, if you’re thinking of trying out a new restaurant and are searching for reviews, rich snippets could include things like the average review score, the number of reviews, and the restaurant’s price range,” explained Mayer in Google’s official release.
While an interesting addition, Google is keen to point out that rich snippet availability must be supported by Web publishers that show a willingness to adopt microformats or RDFa standards in order to mark up their HTML and allow the structured search data to rise to the surface.
Described by Google as something of an interactive tool belt, the Web giant has said features attached to Search Options will only multiply in the future. Want to learn a little more about Search Options? Click below to watch an official video explanation.
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