Inside Search

A multi-screen and conversational search experience

2013-05-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

Search has always been about giving you the best answers quickly, regardless of what device you use. At Google I/O today, we gave an update on where we are in building the search engine of the future--a search engine that can answer your questions, have a conversation with you, and even give you useful things without you ever having to ask.

A conversation with search -- across your devices

People communicate with each other by conversation, not by typing keywords -- and we’ve been hard at work to make Google understand and answer your questions more like people do. Already, you can tap a mic, talk to Google in a more natural way and get responses spoken back to you on Android, iPhone, and iPad devices.

Today, we previewed what this conversational experience will look like in Chrome on your desktops and laptops. Soon, you’ll be able to just say, hands-free, “OK Google, will it be sunny in Santa Cruz this weekend?” and get a spoken answer. Then, you’ll be able to continue the conversation and just follow up with “how far is it from here?” if you care about the drive or “how about Monterey?” if you want to check weather somewhere else, and get Google to tell you the answer.

Better answers - Improvements to the Knowledge Graph

We announced the Knowledge Graph -- our map of real-world people, places and things -- less than a year ago and since then have been adding more depth. We’ve also expanded it to make search more intelligent in other languages. And starting today, you’ll get richer answers from the Knowledge Graph if you speak Polish, Turkish, and Traditional and Simplified Chinese.

You’ll also get smarter answers to questions like “what’s the population of Canada?” Not only will Google answer that question, but you also get an answer to the next few follow-up questions people often ask. In a single card, you’ll see how Canada’s population changed over time -- and a comparison with California and Australia.

Google Now: a new take on reminders, and new cards

Google Now is about providing you with just the right information at just the right time. With the new reminders in Now, not only can you save things to remember later, but you can actually pick a time or place to trigger those reminders, so they pop up at just the right time. Because a note to buy milk, paper towels and food for the dog, is a lot more helpful when you’re actually at the grocery store. Or if you’re about to miss the last train home, Google Now can remind you that you better leave. And if you’re interested in an upcoming book or there’s a new album you’re excited to listen to, Google Now will shoot you a reminder when it comes out, and even provide a recommendation. And the best part is, you can create some of these reminders with just your voice.

With just the tap of a mic or flick of a finger, millions of people across the world can easily tap into the entire world’s knowledge and find what they need to make their lives better, or just have their day run a little smoother. That’s why we’re so excited about the new search experience we’re building at Google and it will change how we experience life.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Senior Vice President

More than 70 of the world’s languages in the blink of an eye

2013-05-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

If you took a quick snapshot of content available on the web, you might think that everyone around the world spoke English, Chinese, French or Spanish. But in fact, millions of people around the world speak an incredible array of languages that currently have a small presence across the web.

Google Translate helps bridge the divide between the content available online and people’s ability to access that information. Starting today, you can translate another five languages using Google, which combined are spoken by more than 183 million people around the globe:

Bosnian is an official language in Bosnia and Herzegovina that’s also spoken in regions of neighboring countries and by diaspora communities around the world.
Cebuano is one of the languages spoken in the Philippines, predominantly in the middle (Visayas) and southern (Mindanao) regions of the nation.
You can hear the Hmong language spoken in many countries across the world, including China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and throughout the United States.
Javanese is the second most-spoken language in Indonesia (behind Indonesian), with 83 million native speakers.
Marathi is spoken in India and has 73 million native speakers. Google Translate already supports several other Indian languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

With the exception of Bosnian, these new languages are “alpha,” meaning while the quality isn’t perfect, we will continue to test and improve them over time.

You can access Translate on the web at https://translate.google.com, on your Android or iOS device, or via Chrome and in Gmail. We are excited to reach the 70+ language milestone, and we look forward to continuing to add more languages.

Bosnian: Google Prevodilac sada podržava više od 70 jezika!

Cebuano: Google sa Translate misuporta na karon sa kapin sa 70 ka mga!

Hmong: Google Translate nim no txhawb nqa tshaj li 70 hom lus!

Javanese: Google Translate saiki ndhukung luwih saka 70 basa!

Marathi: Google भाषांतर आता 70 पेक्षा जास्त भाषांचे समर्थन करते!

Posted by Sveta Kelman, Program Manager, Google Translate

Google+ Sign-In: Bringing App Activities to Google Search

2013-04-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted from The Google+ Developers Blog

When users search for your app, they often want to go deeper and see what in-app content fellow users find interesting. Today we're making this possible by bringing app activity to Google search results.

Aggregate app activity for SoundCloud in Google Search.

Soon, if you search for a site or app on Google.com (and that app has integrated with Google+ Sign-In app activities), you'll see popular and aggregate user activity to the right of search results. Searching for Fandango, for example, will show the top movies among Google users. And when you click on a movie, you’ll go directly to its page on Fandango.

The current Google Search results page for Fandango (left) and the Google Search page results with app activities (right).

We're rolling out this feature in desktop Search over the next few weeks, starting with a limited number of music and movie apps — including Deezer, Fandango, Flixster, Slacker Radio, Songza, SoundCloud and TuneIn — but we'll be adding more apps over time.

We've got lots more improvements planned, so stay tuned for more updates.

Posted by Seth Sternberg, Director of Product Management, Google+

Making your mobile search faster

2013-04-16T09:26:00.002-07:00

When you’re searching for information on the go, speed matters. If you want to check out Rotten Tomatoes for a new movie to go see with your friends, you might not want to navigate through the Rotten Tomatoes homepage to find the list of top movies while your friends are anxiously waiting. Now, there’s a faster way to get to the Rotten Tomatoes page with just the info you need most -- just look for a new quick link for “In Theaters” underneath the main Rotten Tomatoes link when you search on your mobile phone. You’ll see these expandable sitelinks appear for many sites to help you get to a specific section quickly.

Also starting today, on some searches you’ll see a blue “Quick view” badge next to a few results. Say you’re new to poker or need a quick refresh on hands -- just search for “poker hands”, and you can now click the blue badge and see a quick view of the Wikipedia page listing out the poker hands immediately.

Quick view is an experimental project and is currently enabled for pages from Wikipedia when you search in English on Google.com. We are working to expand this to additional websites.

(Webmasters can subscribe to updates here to learn about participating in the mobile quick view field trial.)

Posted by Hiroshi Mizuno and Alex Fischer, Software Engineers

The World’s Languages in Your Pocket (No Internet Required)

2013-03-27T10:45:00.001-07:00

Have you ever found yourself in a foreign country, wishing you knew how to say "I'm lost!" or "I'm allergic to peanuts”? The Internet and services like Google Translate can help—but what if you don't have a connection?

Today we're launching offline language packages for Google Translate on Android (2.3 and above) with support for fifty languages, from French and Spanish to Chinese and Arabic.

You can select [Offline Languages] in the app menu to see all the offline language packages available for download. To enable offline translation between any two languages, you just need to select them in the offline languages menu. Once the packages are downloaded, you're good to go.

While the offline models are less comprehensive than their online equivalents, they are perfect for translating in a pinch when you are traveling abroad with poor reception or without mobile data access.

So go out and explore another language or another culture without worrying about Internet access. There’s a whole world offline out there.

Posted by Minqi Jiang, Associate Product Manager

Billions of times a day in the blink of an eye

2013-03-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

Ask a question, get an answer. But what happens in between? Last year we released an animated site that illustrates an email's journey to friends and family around the world. Today we're releasing a similar website called How Search Works.

Here you can follow the entire life of a search query, from the web, to crawling and indexing, to algorithmic ranking and serving, to fighting webspam. The site complements existing resources, including this blog, the help center, user forums, Webmaster Tools, and in-depth research papers.

A few things you'll find:

An interactive, graphical explanation of Google Search
A view into major search algorithms and features
A 43-page document explaining how we evaluate our results
A live slideshow of spam as we remove it
Graphs illustrating the spam problem and how we fight it
A list of policies that explain when we'll remove content

We hope the site helps to illuminate the split-second journey from algorithms to answers. The animated site is available today in English and there's also a text-only version in 43 languages.

Posted by Jake Hubert, Product Manager

Google Finance adds Singapore, Korea and Israel stock exchanges and VIX index

2013-02-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

Good news if you follow international markets — we added three new stock exchanges as well as the Chicago Board of Exchange indices to Google Finance. Here are just a few examples of stocks and indices that you can now find:

CBOE Index Values: VIX
Korea Exchange: Samsung, Hyundai
Singapore Exchange: SingTel, Singapore Airlines
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange: Bank Leumi, TA-25 index

Even better, Singapore Exchange stock market data is available in real time. This is the first time Singapore Exchange has provided real time data to an open website, and we’re proud to be the first website to do so.

As always, you can view the full list of the stock exchanges available through Google Finance here.

Post Content Posted by Karolina Netolicka, Product Manager

Plan your Valentine’s date night -- even if you’re a bit late to the game

2013-02-12T12:26:00.000-08:00

You’ve got less than two days before Valentine’s Day -- are your plans in place? If you’re swamped at work and scrambling to find a last minute dinner reservation, flower shop, chocolates, and a romantic spot for that special someone, Google can help you look like a smooth operator, even if you’re just starting to plan now.

Looking for flowers and chocolate?
Simply tap the microphone icon on your Google Search App on iOS or your Android device and ask “Where’s the nearest flower shop?” to see where you can pick up roses for that special someone. Hoping to find a delectable box of chocolates nearby? Ask, “Where can I buy chocolate in San Francisco?” In seconds you can swipe through the options, tap to call the shop, and get voice-guided navigation there by car or by public transit.

Find the perfect date spot.
If you’re looking for a new restaurant or hidden romantic spot in your city, Google can help you find the perfect fit. Are you hoping to make dinner anything but ordinary? Ask Google for “restaurants with live music in San Francisco,” and swipe through local options that fit your taste and budget. Looking for a perfect romantic spot or attraction? Say, “Show me pictures of romantic spots in San Francisco,” and swipe through a collection of photos to pick the perfect place.

Whether you’re looking for a little novelty with your significant other or just recently mustered up the courage to ask out a new crush, we hope this makes it a little easier to plan a special outing. Good luck!

Roya Soleimani, Search Communications Team

Get ready for Game Day with Google

2013-02-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

As all of you football fans prepare for the San Francisco - Baltimore game this Sunday, we thought we’d pull together some ways to make the most of the Big Game with a little help from Google. From hosting the perfect party to learning more about your favorite players, check out some tips on ways Google can help.

Planning a party for the big game? Ask Google for some help

Whether your party food is wings, dip, chili or nachos, we can all agree on one thing: the messier, the better. You can get your party prep and cooking done without getting your phone too messy, using Google Voice Search, hands-free on your tablet or smartphone. With a quick tap of the microphone icon, you can literally ask Google for help:

-Need to buy drinks? Simply ask “what is the closest grocery store?” and we’ll show you the nearest ones to scroll through. With a quick tap, you’ll be there with the help of turn-by-turn navigation.

-Maybe you want to make that cocktail that’s like a Bloody Mary but not quite... ask “what’s a michelada?” -- and you’ll both hear and see the ingredients.

-Once you’re ready to cook, ask “best chili recipes” and see a range of options, or ask “how do I make guacamole?” and find your way to the best sites to answer your question.

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Get the stats on your favorite players

Whether you want to impress fellow fans with your sports trivia, or if you are curious about the guy who scored the last touchdown, Google Search can get instant and more complete answers. Ask about your favorite players, teams, and explore a world of related and connected topics as well.

Indoor stadium and airport views on Google Maps

If you’re one of the lucky fans who gets to see the game in person, you can use indoor Google Maps to quickly find your gate, your seat, or some game time snacks at the Superdome.

To access the indoor map, just search for “Superdome” in Google Maps on your Android phone and zoom in to see the stadium floor plan. Search the map to find section numbers, bathrooms and points of interest, and use the numbered floor picker (on the right-hand side) to see maps for each floor.

Make sure you’ve downloaded the latest version of Google Maps for Android to access indoor maps.

Watch your favorite ads with Ad Blitz on YouTube

To make it easier to catch up on all the commercials, the YouTube Ad Blitz channel in partnership with ADWEEK will let you watch your favorite ads soon as they air live on TV. You can vote for your favorite ad at the end of the game. To learn more about all the new social, gaming, and mobile features in this year’s gallery, visit our YouTube blog.

Google Images: faster, more reliable and lets the images do the talking

2013-01-24T14:38:00.000-08:00

When you’re looking for images, chances are you want to check out more than just one. So we’ve redesigned Google Images to make it easier to move through a series of images -- it’s now faster, more reliable and lets the images do the talking.

Instead of sending you over to a whole new page to preview an image, you’ll see a preview of the image in your search results. Once you click on an image, you can quickly flip through the whole set of image previews using your keyboard. Your search results stay in the panel so you don’t lose track of what you were doing; if you want to go back to looking at other search results, you can just scroll down and pick up right where you left off. If you want to check out the website where the image is hosted, you can click on the photo or use the tools available.

The new design is rolling out worldwide over the next few days. Google Images has always been about providing you visual answers. We hope this update makes it easier and even a bit more fun to find the images you’re looking for.

Posted by Hongyi Li, Associate Product Manager

Google Handwrite gets easier and faster

2013-01-18T07:53:00.000-08:00

Since we launched Google Handwrite last summer for smartphones and tablets, we’ve been improving recognition quality and also working on a number of features to make it easier and faster to handwrite your searches on Google. You can now distinguish between ambiguous characters, overlap your characters, and write multiple characters at a time in Chinese.

Is it an L, a 1 or an I?
If you’ve tried Handwrite before, you may have had some trouble entering a lowercase “L”, the number “1”, or a capital “I”. Now, we provide alternate interpretations of your characters that you can select above the space bar. Similarly, in Japanese the characters “イ” and “ィ” look nearly identical but are different characters and produce different search results. If Google interprets your handwriting one way and you meant the other, you can now more easily make a correction.

Some overlapping is OK
Compared with tablets, mobile phone screens are smaller and are a little more difficult to write on. Now, instead of squeezing in your letters across the width of the small screen or writing one letter at a time, you can write letters on top of one another. Say you’re in the grocery store and you want to look up a recipe for quiche on your phone. When you write the letters “q”, “u”, “i”, “c”, “h”, and “e”, it’s okay if they overlap and are garbled a bit.

Multiple characters at a time in Chinese
When we first launched last summer, you could only write one Chinese character at a time. Now, you can write more than one character at a time on a line, which makes it much faster and easier to enter your search.

To enable Google Handwrite, go to Google.com on your smartphone or tablet, go to settings, select “Enable” Handwrite, and save the settings. For more tips and tricks, view our Help Center page.

Posted by Lawrence Chang, Product Manager

Advanced Power Searching with Google -- Registration Opens Today

2013-01-08T08:37:00.000-08:00

What historic cafe inspired a poem by a Nobel Laureate? In the last three barista world championships, which winners did not use beans from their home country? If you were preparing a blog post on “Curious Trivia of Coffee Culture,” how would you find the answers to these questions? What else would you discover? Now you can sign up for our Advanced Power Searching with Google online course and find out.

Building on Power Searching with Google, Advanced Power Searching with Google helps you gain a deeper understanding of how to become a better researcher. You will solve complex search challenges similar to those I posed in my blog, or a Google a Day, and explore Google’s advanced search tools not covered in the first class.

Oftentimes the most intriguing questions invite you to explore beyond the initial answer, and there’s no single correct path to get there. When looking for questions that can’t be solved with a single query, “search” can quickly turn into “research.” Google Search offers a palette of tools to help you dive deeper into the web of knowledge.

Visit www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com to learn more about our online search courses, and review our search tips on the Power Searching with Google Quick Reference Guide. Advanced Power Searching begins on January 23 and ends on February 8th.

Posted by Dan Russell, Über Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness

A better, faster travel planning experience: 2012 updates

2012-12-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the ITA Software By Google blog)

Google aims to help people turn their intents into actions, lightning fast. For travelers, this means we’re helping to take the complexity out of planning a trip by making it fast and easy for users to find the information they need to plan their next journey. Whether you’re looking for information about flights, hotels, activities or destinations, we have tools to help you -- and they are easily accessible for people on the go. Some of our favorite new functionality is outlined below.

More information, better presentation

This year, we’ve made some changes to the user interface of Flight Search, and added features that offer more information about amenities and fees; we did this to help users feel well-informed, and to help them quickly choose the best itinerary.

For instance, you can now quickly compare multiple destinations and multiple days simultaneously, using live prices, with our recently introduced experimental feature called Flight Explorer. Try it at www.google.com/flights/explorer.

Flight Explorer experiment search results page

You can also use a number of new features to tailor your flight shopping:

More easily calculate the total cost of your trip by taking a look at the baggage fees displayed next to each flight option
Choose a flight offering in-air connectivity by viewing a new indicator noting flights that offer Wi-Fi
Consider a little more luxury in the sky by comparing the cost of flying business or first class instead of coach
Easily plan complex itineraries -- such as those including multiple stops, or trips that involve a flight into one city and a return trip from another -- without confusion, using our new, user-friendly interface

Multi-city trip, Wi-Fi availability indicator, upgrade cost and checked baggage fees

Going global

In March, we made it possible for users to find flights to more than 500 destinations outside the US. Soon after, we enabled this capability for any international destination airport, for flights originating from the US or Canada. Globetrotters can try these features at www.google.com/flights, or just type your departure city and destination in the search box.

Results for international destination flight

And late this year, we rolled out localized versions of Hotel Finder in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, UK and Ireland. Now, people in those areas can search for and view hotel options in their own language and currency.

Helping people make informed hotel choices

In 2012, we made it even easier to find and book the right hotel for you using Hotel Finder. We also added more content including Zagat reviews and amenities. Hotel Finder now shows the price and availability for a choice of room types.

Pricing information, reviews, hotel details on Hotel Finder

Varying room types on Hotel Finder

You can try these features, and others, at www.google.com/hotels.

Empowering road warriors, delivering better destination data

In September, we made it easier for you to find the information needed to plan a trip, whether you’re searching via desktop, smartphone or tablet.

Soon after, updates to Google Now offered a number of ways for you to stay informed while on the go:

Automatic flight status notifications
Updates on weather at your destination
Showcase of events happening nearby
Website suggestions to help you explore as you research things to do
Electronic boarding pass cards for ease of travel

Google now travel cards

Finally, you can easily tap into the collective intelligence of the web to uncover a list of information relevant to your destination, using the Knowledge Graph carousel -- and hopefully, find inspiration.

Knowledge Graph carousel list of activities in Rome

Stay tuned for more. We think you’ll love what we have coming your way in 2013.

Posted by Jeremy Wertheimer, Vice President, Travel

Zeitgeist 2012: What piqued your curiosity this year?

2012-12-12T05:00:00.000-08:00

As 2012 comes to a close, it's time for our 12th annual Year-End Zeitgeist—an in-depth look at the "spirit of the times" as seen through the billions of searches on Google over the past year.

On our 2012 Zeitgeist website, you can explore the most popular and hottest trending search terms from around the world. This year’s site is our most global to date, with a total of 838 lists from 55 countries. We’ve also added a number of new features, including an interactive map that shows where and when some of the hottest terms spiked around the world, and a Google Zeitgeist Android app coming out later today (with an iOS version coming soon too).

For a round-the-globe tour through 2012, take a look at our video:

So what kinds of things were top of mind this year? While there are perennial themes—“what is love?” topped the list in 10 countries—it’s the unusual and surprising that caught our attention in 2012.

Global superstar Whitney Houston topped many countries’ lists as well as three of our overall trending lists—her unexpected death surprising fans around the world. From Korea, YouTube sensation PSY’s “Gangnam Style” signature dance took the world by storm, landing him the #1 spot in many countries and making his song the second most trending query of 2012. (PSY’s video became the #1 most watched in YouTube history—stay tuned for YouTube’s Rewind for more.)

Then there was the superhuman. Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner’s epic free fall jump made him the #6 globally trending person of the year, while the 2012 Olympics and its various athletes made it into almost every country’s top trends. And NBA player Jeremy Lin also rose on the charts this year, making him the #1 trending athlete globally.

People researched a breadth of other topics, too. Web users took a serious interest in threats to the open Internet, with proposals like SOPA and ACTA both finding their way to the top of many countries’ lists. The U.S. elections brought attention to the candidates and issues, not least the presidential campaigns’ most notorious political gaffes. And while it might not be surprising to see that tragic natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy ranked highly (#3 on the global trending list), it is reassuring to find searches like [donate to Sandy] spiking as well.

We hope you enjoy exploring what people around the world were searching for in 2012. It’s quite a snapshot of what makes us human: a blend of guilty pleasures and higher pursuits.

Posted by Amit Singhal, SVP & Google Fellow

Quick answers to resolve holiday travel stress

2012-12-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

It’s easy to have a love-hate relationship with the holidays. On the one hand, it’s a joyous time of the year full of festivities and delicious baked goods. On the other hand, it’s stressful. For something like traveling which is already stressful on its own, traveling during the holidays can feel like twice the trouble.

One way to cut down on some of the stress before you head to the airport is to plan ahead. Let’s say this year you’re traveling to France for the holidays. Here are some quick answers that can make your planning faster and easier -- we recently redesigned these features to be richer and more interactive on mobile and tablet, and now you’ll see them on desktop as well, so you can plan ahead whether you’re at home or on the go:

Figure out your budget. Since luggage space is limited and you don’t want to pay an overage fee, you may want to buy your gifts when you land in France. Find the currency exchange rate ahead of time so you can figure out how much that $15 (USD) fruitcake actually costs in euros by searching [15 usd in euro] or [french currency].

Learn about French traditions. Friends who live in Paris have invited you to their reveillon dinner. Trouble is, you don’t know what that means. You can quickly find the answer by typing [define reveillon] in Google.

Plan your holiday Hangouts. Even though you’ll be oceans apart, you can still wish your family a happy holidays in person. Schedule a date for a Google+ Hangout, but don’t forget to factor in the time difference, which you can figure out by searching [time in france].

Track your flight before you leave the house. To avoid arriving at the airport only to find out your flight’s been delayed for hours, you can quickly check the flight status by typing the flight number like [united airlines 942] or [UA942], into the search box.

Other quick answers we’re updating on desktop over the next few weeks are finance, unit conversion, holiday and sunrise times, and weather. And, of course, you can also make your holidays easier to manage using things like our Flight Search feature to book your trip, Google+ to share your photos with family and friends, Google Docs to track your holiday spending, and more.

Happy holidays!

Posted by Robert Stacey, Software Engineer

Get smarter answers from the Knowledge Graph from Português to 日本語 to русский

2012-12-04T07:55:00.001-08:00

Over the next few days, when you search in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, or Italian, you’ll start seeing new answers from the Knowledge Graph -- our project to map out real-world things as diverse as movies, bridges and planets. You can now quickly and easily discover new information relevant to your language and country.

So in Japanese, your search for [白鵬] will bring up the top-ranked sumo wrestler, including his heya and ranks, and help you discover other highly-ranked sumo wrestlers. Or a Russian search for [петр I] will help you research the country’s historic Tzar Peter the Great, and explore connections to his family and other famous rulers. And if you’re a fan of football in Brazil, [corinthians] will show information including that team’s most recent championship wins -- all in your language.

This is more than just translation. The Knowledge Graph needs to account for different meanings of the same word -- “football” means something quite different in the U.S. than in Europe. It also needs to recognize what's most important in a particular region. The graph now covers 570 million entities, 18 billion facts and connections, and about three times as many queries globally as when we first launched it -- we’ll keep working on making it more useful for you.

Posted by Aaron Brown, Senior Product Manager, Search

Look up medications more quickly and easily on Google

2012-11-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

We get a lot of queries for medicine on Google. So to make it quick and easy for you to learn about medications, we’ll start showing key facts -- side effects, related medications, links to in-depth resources, and more -- right on the search results page.

This data comes from the U.S. FDA, the National Library of Medicine, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, among others. It’s part of the Knowledge Graph -- our project to map out billions of real-world things, from famous artists to roller coasters to planets (and now medications). We hope you find this useful, but remember that these results do not act as medical advice.

Posted by Aaron Brown, Senior Product Manager, Search

Spiffing up your search results page

2012-11-06T15:55:00.001-08:00

You’ll notice a new simpler, cleaner design on the search results page — we’ve been working on ways to create a consistent search experience across the wide variety of devices and screen sizes people use today. We started with tablets last year, got it to mobile phones a few weeks ago, and are now rolling out to the desktop.

With the new design, there’s a bit more breathing room, and more focus on the answers you’re looking for, whether from web results or from a feature like the Knowledge Graph:

The same advanced tools you’re used to are still there when you need them. Just click on “Search tools” to filter or drill down on your results:

It’s going out to Google.com users in the U.S. to start, and we want to get it to users in other languages and regions as soon as we can. We hope you enjoy this design refresh — let us know what you think on our Google+ page.

Posted by Jon Wiley, Lead Designer, Google Search

Get your Google back

2012-10-26T09:39:00.002-07:00

If you’ve moved to Windows 8 and are getting acquainted with it, you may be looking for a couple of your favorite Google products that you use every day. To help you get the best experience possible on Google and across the web, we’ve designed and built a new Google Search app and Chrome browser for Windows 8 and created a simple site to help you get your Google back.

The Google Search app comes with a clean and recognizable user interface. Our new voice search lets you naturally speak questions. The image search and image previews are built for swiping. And, as usual, you get immediate results as you type with Google Instant. The doodles you enjoy on special occasions will be right there on the homepage and even show up on the Google tile on your start screen.

The Chrome browser is the same Chrome you know and love, with some customizations to optimize for touchscreens, including larger buttons and the ability to keep Chrome open next to your other favorite apps. It delivers the fast, secure web experience you’ve come to expect from Chrome on all your devices.

To get both Google Search and Chrome installed on your Windows 8 machine, head to our site and learn how to get your familiar Google apps back.

Posted by Tamar Yehoshua, Product Management Director, Search

“People also search for” -- now with explanations!

2012-10-19T10:46:00.001-07:00

Search is a lot about discovery, and the Knowledge Graph, our map of real-world people, places and things, is designed to help you find new information easily. Have you ever flipped through the “People also search for” section of the Knowledge Graph panels and wondered -- just how are those two people connected anyway? People had fun with our Bacon Number calculator, which revealed some, often surprising, connections, and now we’re taking it one step further. Just mouse over or click on a thumbnail to see an explanation of how it’s connected to the subject of your search:

“People also search for” movies for Gone with the Wind

We’re starting by showing major co-starring roles between actors, movies, and TV shows as well as highlighting family connections amongst famous people in the Knowledge Graph. These connections won’t show up all the time, but when there is an interesting explanation available, you can now see it at a glance. Happy browsing!

Posted by Golan Pundak, Engineer

Find your stuff faster in Gmail and Search

2012-10-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted on the Official Gmail Blog)

When you’re looking for something, you should be able to find what you need quickly and easily without needing to think about where it might be, whether it's in your email or out on the public web. That’s why this past August we opened a field trial allowing you to sign up to get information from Gmail right from the Google search box.

We’ve gotten very positive feedback from those of you testing it out -- such as this note: “The Gmail results feature is awesome! The fact that it's all integrated into one screen is huge.” Many testers have requested being able to find Drive files as well -- as one of you put it, “It would be awesome if I could search my google drive from google search as well :)”.

So starting today, you can sign up for a new and expanded field trial that makes it easier to find your stuff across Google, whether you’re searching on Google.com or searching in Gmail.

In Gmail, as you begin to type into the search box, you'll instantly start seeing relevant emails from Gmail as well as results from Google Drive, Google Calendar, and more:

Similarly, when you search on Google.com, your results will include relevant information and messages from Gmail (something familiar to those who joined the original field trial) and now -- new in this field trial -- also files, documents, spreadsheets and more from Google Drive:

To give this a try, please visit the updated field trial page and select Join the field trial. Please note that this trial is only accessible in English and for @gmail.com addresses (not available on Google Apps accounts). And keep the feedback coming!

Posted by Bram Moolenaar, Software Engineer

Search quality highlights: 65 changes for August and September

2012-10-04T09:12:00.000-07:00

Our latest installment of search quality highlights is here with 65 changes to report for August and September. As you may recall from our last post, in cases where we don’t have a descriptive name, we are using a unique ID number. August and September were both busy months as we launched new features, expanded the Knowledge Graph globally in English, and worked towards building the search engine of the future.

Here’s the list for August:

#82862. [project “Page Quality”] This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
#83197. [project “Autocomplete”] This launch introduced changes in the way we generate query predictions for Autocomplete.
#83818. [project “Answers”] This change improved display of the movie showtimes feature.
#83819. [project “Answers”] We improved display of the MLB search feature.
#83820. [project “Answers”] This change improved display of the finance search feature.
#83384. [project “Universal Search”] We made improvements to driving directions in Turkish.
#83459. [project “Alternative Search Methods”] We added support for answers about new stock exchanges for voice queries.
LTS. [project “Other Ranking Components”] We improved our web ranking to determine what pages are relevant for queries containing locations.
Maru. [project “SafeSearch”] We updated SafeSearch to improve the handling of adult video content in videos mode for queries that are not looking for adult content.
#83135. [project “Query Understanding”] This change updated term-proximity scoring.
#83659. [project “Answers”] We made improvements to display of the local time search feature.
#83105. [project “Snippets”] We refreshed data used to generate sitelinks.
Imadex. [project “Freshness”] This change updated handling of stale content and applies a more granular function based on document age.
#83613. [project “Universal Search”] This change added the ability to show a more appropriately sized video thumbnail on mobile when the user clearly expresses intent for a video.
#83443. [project “Knowledge Graph”] We added a lists and collections component to the Knowledge Graph.
#83442. [project “Snippets”] This change improved a signal we use to determine how relevant a possible result title actually is for the page.
#83012. [project “Knowledge Graph] The Knowledge Graph displays factual information and refinements related to many types of searches. This launch extended the Knowledge Graph to English-speaking locales beyond the U.S.
#84063. [project “Answers”] We added better understanding of natural language searches for the calculator feature, focused on currencies and arithmetic.
nearby. [project “User Context”] We improved the precision and coverage of our system to help you find more relevant local web results. Now we’re better able to identify web results that are local to the user, and rank them appropriately.
essence. [project “Autocomplete”] This change introduced entity predictions in autocomplete. Now Google will predict not just the string of text you might be looking for, but the actual real-world thing. Clarifying text will appear in the drop-down box to help you disambiguate your search.
#83821. [project “Answers”] We introduced better natural language parsing for display of the conversions search feature.
#82279. [project “Other Ranking Components”] We changed to fewer results for some queries to show the most relevant results as quickly as possible.
#82407. [project “Other Search Features”] For pages that we do not crawl because of robots.txt, we are usually unable to generate a snippet for users to preview what's on the page. This change added a replacement snippet that explains that there's no description available because of robots.txt.
#83709. [project “Other Ranking Components”] This change was a minor bug fix related to the way links are used in ranking.
#82546. [project “Indexing”] We made back-end improvements to video indexing to improve the efficiency of our systems.
Palace. [project “SafeSearch”] This change decreased the amount of adult content that will show up in Image Search mode when SafeSearch is set to strict.
#84010. [project “Page Quality”] We refreshed data for the "Panda" high-quality sites algorithm.
#84083. [project “Answers”] This change improved the display of the movie showtimes search feature.
gresshoppe. [project “Answers”] We updated the display of the flight search feature for searches without a specified destination.
#83670. [project “Snippets”] We made improvements to surface fewer generic phrases like "comments on" and "logo" in search result titles.
#83777. [project “Synonyms”] This change made improvements to rely on fewer "low-confidence" synonyms when the user's original query has good results.
#83377. [project “User Context”] We made improvements to show more relevant local results.
#83484. [project “Refinements”] This change helped users refine their searches to find information about the right person, particularly when there are many prominent people with the same name.
#82872. [project “SafeSearch”] In "strict" SafeSearch mode we remove results if they are not very relevant. This change previously launched in English, and this change expanded it internationally.
Knowledge Graph Carousel. [project “Knowledge Graph”] This change expanded the Knowledge Graph carousel feature globally in English.
Sea. [project “SafeSearch”] This change helped prevent adult content from appearing when SafeSearch is in "strict" mode.
#84259. [project “Autocomplete”] This change tweaked the display of real-world entities in autocomplete to reduce repetitiveness. With this change, we don't show the entity name (displayed to the right of the dash) when it's fully contained in the query.
TSSPC. [project “Spelling”] This change used spelling algorithms to improve the relevance of long-tail autocomplete predictions.
#83689. [project “Page Quality”] This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
#84068. [project “Answers”] We improved the display of the currency conversion search feature.
#84586. [project “Other Ranking Components”] This change improved how we rank documents for queries with location terms.

Here’s the list for September:

Dot. [project “Autocomplete”] We improved cursor-aware predictions in Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages. Suppose you're searching for "restaurants" and then decide you want "Italian restaurants." With cursor-aware predictions, once you put your cursor back to the beginning of the search box and start typing "I," the prediction system will make predictions for "Italian," not completions of "Irestaurants."
#84288. [project “Autocomplete”] This change made improvements to show more fresh predictions in autocomplete for Korean.
trafficmaps. [project “Universal Search”] With this change, we began showing a traffic map for queries like "traffic from A to B" or "traffic between A and B."
#84394. [project “Page Quality”] This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
#84652. [project “Snippets”] We currently generate titles for PDFs (and other non-html docs) when converting the documents to HTML. These auto-generated titles are usually good, but this change made them better by looking at other signals.
#83761. [project “Freshness”] This change helped you find the latest content from a given site when two or more documents from the same domain are relevant for a given search query.
#83406. [project “Query Understanding”] We improved our ability to show relevant Universal Search results by better understanding when a search has strong image intent, local intent, video intent, etc.
espd. [project “Autocomplete”] This change provided entities in autocomplete that are more likely to be relevant to the user's country. See blog post for background.
#83391. [project “Answers”] This change internationalized and improved the precision of the symptoms search feature.
#82876. [project “Autocomplete”] We updated autocomplete predictions when predicted queries share the same last word.
#83304. [project “Knowledge Graph”] This change updated signals that determine when to show summaries of topics in the right-hand panel.
#84211. [project “Snippets”] This launch led to better snippet titles.
#81360. [project “Translation and Internationalization”] With this launch, we began showing local URLs to users instead of general homepages where applicable (e.g. blogspot.ch instead of blogspot.com for users in Switzerland). That’s relevant, for example, for global companies where the product pages are the same, but the links for finding the nearest store are country-dependent.
#81999. [project “Translation and Internationalization”] We revamped code for understanding which documents are relevant for particular regions and languages automatically (if not annotated by the webmaster).
Cobra. [project “SafeSearch”] We updated SafeSearch algorithms to better detect adult content.
#937372. [project “Other Search Features”] The translate search tool is available through the link "Translated foreign pages" in the sidebar of the search result page. In addition, when we guess that a non-English search query would have better results from English documents, we'll show a feature at the bottom of the search results page to suggest users try the translate search tool. This change improved the relevance of when we show the suggestion.
#84460. [project “Snippets”] This change helped to better identify important phrases on a given webpage.
#80435. [project “Autocomplete”] This change improves autocomplete predictions based on the user's Web History (for signed-in users).
#83901. [project “Synonyms”] This change improved the use of synonyms for search terms to more often return results that are relevant to the user's intention.

And here are a few other changes we’ve blogged about since last time:

Posted by Pandu Nayak, Member of Technical Staff

Travelers can now access Flight Search from their tablets

2012-09-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted on the ITA Software by Google blog)

More and more travelers are using tablets to search for and book travel. In fact, 46% of all US tablet owners who search for travel, actually purchase via their tablet. We also know that people use their tablets differently than they use their desktop. That’s why we’ve optimized our Flight Search experience for those who prefer to search with a tablet, such as a Nexus 7 or an iPad.

Starting today, travelers can search for and book flights on any tablet device by going to http://www.google.com/flights/. With the touch of your finger, you can easily explore places to visit on the map and see prices updated in real-time for each destination.

If you’re flexible with your dates you can also use our lowest fares tool and scroll across days, weeks and months to find the cheapest dates to take your trip. Your results will be updated super-fast, even when you switch dates or destinations.

We hope this makes planning your next trip easier and more enjoyable -- whether you’re using your desktop, laptop, mobile device or tablet. We look forward to your continued feedback on Flight Search.

Posted by Rani Manoharan, User Interface Designer, Travel

Insights into what the world is searching for -- the new Google Trends

2012-09-27T10:11:00.000-07:00

Since we launched Google Trends and Google Insights for Search, we’ve seen millions of people using Trends to keep up with trending interests online, and a range of journalists, businesses and researchers around the world using Insights for Search to compare the popularity of search terms over time and across regions. We have made steady improvements over time, most recently revamping our Hot Searches list to provide richer context for breakout searches.

Now we are merging Insights for Search into Google Trends, wrapping it all up in a clean new interface to give you a clearer view of what’s on the world’s mind. The new Google Trends now includes features from both products and makes it easier and more intuitive to dig into the data. We’ve updated the line chart and map using HTML5 based Google Chart Tools so you can now load the page on your mobile devices, visualize the results without scrolling, and get Hot Searches not just for the U.S., but also India, Japan, and Singapore.

So, what exactly can you learn about people’s interests from Google Trends? A few of our recent favorites:

[beach] and [snow] are just about inverse throughout the year

West Virginia leads the US in searches for spooky things (play around at the bottom left!)
Interest in [red hot chili peppers] shifted around Europe this summer as the band toured there -- see this time-lapse map:

We’ve seen so many examples of insights gleaned from Trends, from the Oscars to the Super Bowl; from shopping to elections; from our yearly Google Zeitgeist summary to the many we’ve found around the web.

Google Trends data can be used to better understand global trends -- identifying health trends such as in flu trends, nowcasting in economics, and studies on the predictability of search trends. And it has been used in many scientific articles across disciplines.

There’s so much in this data for journalists, academics, and anybody who’s curious about the world to explore, and we’d love to see what you find. Email us your favorites at trends-stories@google.com.

Posted by Yossi Matias, Senior Engineering Director in Search, Head of Israel R&D Center

Oktoberfest anyone?

2012-09-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted on the ITA Software by Google blog)

If you’re thinking about attending the 179th Oktoberfest, there’s still time. It runs September 22 -October 7 in Munich, Germany. Just in case you’re planning a trip, we’ve assembled some tips for how you can use Google tools like Flight Search, Hotel Finder, Maps and Transit to help you plan an amazing trip -- whether you’re using your desktop, laptop or on your Android device.

If you want to figure out the best beer tents to visit, this Google Map will be a great place to turn during the event (will be live 09/22/12). When the pin over the tent is green, the tent still has seating and is open. When the pin is red, the tent is closed because of overfilling.

My favorite tent is the Hippodrom, a smaller tent frequented by a younger crowd -- and recently discovered by celebrities. It offers beer -- of course -- but also has a sekt (sparkling wine) bar that is pretty stylish. You should plan on arriving early if you want to visit.

You can also see live pics from Oktoberfest by clicking on various webcams on the map. This capability is very useful in providing information to help you choose the tents you’re most interested in visiting.

You might also want to plan ahead and consider the crowds and traffic. With Google Maps for Android, you can take a look at live traffic to see if you want to drive -- or choose to just walk, bike or take transit.

If you want to see more of Germany, you can use Google Transit to reach other cities such as Hamburg or Frankfurt. This navigation tool includes information about Deutsche Bahn (DB) trains and recommends the best transit options, taking into account various factors such as duration and number of Umstiege (transfers/stops). The options are then shown on the map, along with time, train type and duration of the trip. This is especially handy because it’s possible to click through from the transit options page, to purchase your tickets on bahn.de without needing to reenter the dates!

And if you’re a non-Bavarian who doesn’t speak German, don’t worry. You can use Google Translate or the official Oktoberfest dictionary to communicate with the locals.

So now that your interest is piqued, you’ll probably want to plan a trip right away. You can do so by going to www.google.com and searching for [flights to Munich]. Your departure city will be automatically recognized; mine was New York City. As you change your dates, prices will instantly update.

I prefer nonstop flights, so I clicked on “Nonstop” to get a list of flight times available at the $1,073 USD price and then evaluated various attributes of the flights -- including the cost of checked bags for this ticket. Once I picked the flights that worked for me, I clicked the red “Book” button to make my booking via the airline’s website.

Finally, you can use Hotel Finder to find hotels near Oktoberfest in Munich. You can do this by going to www.google.com/hotelfinder and entering [Oktoberfest Munich, Germany], along with the dates you plan to be in town. You can use the reviews, images, ratings and pricing information to create a shortlist. Once I selected the hotel I was interested in, I used the red booking button which took me to www.booking.com to complete my reservation.

We hope you found these tips helpful. Whether you end up hitting the Wiesn tents this October, or visiting Germany at some point in the future, we hope to help you plan your trip and connect with travel suppliers with ease.

Posted by Noam Ben Haim, Senior Product Manager, Travel