Inside Search

Find flights to destinations worldwide

2012-03-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

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

If you’re in the U.S. and thinking of hitting the slopes in the Swiss Alps or heading to Sydney for a getaway, you can now use Flight Search to find and book a flight quickly and easily.

Since we launched Flight Search, we’ve heard from many globetrotters eager to use the feature to search for destinations outside the U.S. Starting today, you can find flights, including international destinations, from the U.S. quickly and conveniently.

As you consider vacation possibilities, maybe you’d like to go to Australia but are flexible to fly into either Sydney or Perth based on whichever fare is more affordable. A quick click over each city on the map will show the different options available to you almost instantly -- and click the chart next to the dates to show alternative dates so you can make the best choice for your trip.

Likewise, if you’re looking to hop over to Europe for a weekend from New York City and are flexible with your departure and arrival airports, you can see the options for your gateway. We hope you have fun with our latest update to Flight Search.

At this stage we've included more than 500 airports outside the U.S. If your ideal destination isn't yet available, we're working hard on expanding our global coverage and adding more routes in the future. Our goal is to make booking travel as fast and enjoyable as possible.

Posted by Eric Zimmerman, Product Manager

Video! The search quality meeting, uncut (annotated)

2012-03-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

It took eight video cameras and 16 microphones, but we’ve done something new and special to give you another inside look at how search works. Today we’ve published, for the first time, a video with the uncut discussion of a proposed algorithm change (in this case, an upcoming change to our spell correction system). The language can be technical, so we've included annotations to provide some context for the discussion (and have a little fun!).

The footage was captured on December 1, 2011 at our weekly “Quality Launch Review” meeting. We hold the meeting on Thursdays to discuss possible algorithmic improvements and make decisions about what to launch. As usual, meeting participants gathered in Mountain View and joined on videoconference from remote offices around the globe, including our offices in Moscow, New York, Zurich, Seoul, Haifa and Tokyo. Check out the video for a flavor of the kinds of topics and data the team discusses before making many of the important changes to our system.

A few things you’ll observe:

Even relatively subtle changes get intense scrutiny by our search evaluation and ranking teams. The specific change discussed in this video improves spelling suggestions for searches with more than 10 words and it impacts only .1% of our traffic. Still, you can see the scrutiny and thoughtfulness that goes into approving this change.
Every change has a dedicated search quality analyst assigned to study the impact. This analyst is not part of the engineering team building the change, but instead offers a separate opinion on whether the change is good for users.
The search team relies heavily on the results of experimental data to make decisions. During the meeting, we rely on detailed analyst reports including the results of click evaluations and side-by-side experiments. These reports can sometimes be more than 25 pages long.
Launch reports include specific examples to illustrate broader trends in the data. Rather than manually change one example, our engineers look for algorithmic ways to improve millions of queries.
Search algorithm improvements often rely on and impact many different systems, so engineers with expertise in different areas all need to come together to make the best decision for the user, balancing all the tradeoffs involved (relevance, spam, latency, cost, language impact, etc.)

As I said in the video, this is an experiment, and we’re interested to hear what you think. For all the search geeks out there, we hope you enjoy it! For a video summary of our process, I can also recommend the video we posted last August.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Senior VP and Google Fellow

A completely redesigned Google Search App for Windows 7.5 phones

2012-03-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the Google Mobile Blog)

Windows Phone owners can now get easy access to the Google Search App, available in the
Windows Phone Marketplace. Check out these features which help you get useful results fast:

Google Autocomplete: As you type in your search, our autocomplete feature offers search predictions that often match your intended search term making search entry easier and faster.
Voice Search: With our voice feature, you can avoid typing all together. Simply press the microphone and begin speaking your query.
My Location: With your permission, Google can use your device location to provide nearby results easily and accurately. For instance, a search for “coffee shops” quickly displays the nearest places you can go to for a cup of coffee.

The new Google Search app now has Voice Search (left) as well as Google Autocomplete (right)

You can download the app from the Windows Marketplace and try it for yourself. It’s available worldwide in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

Posted by Ryan Doherty, Software Engineer

Bringing more secure search around the globe

2012-03-05T14:00:00.000-08:00

Several months ago we made a change to our default search experience on google.com — when you’re signed into Google, we add SSL encryption to increase the privacy and security of your web searches. The change encrypts your search queries and our search results page, which is particularly important when you’re using an open, unsecured Internet connection.

We’re now ready to expand this protection, so over the next few weeks we will begin introducing SSL search beyond google.com to our local domains around the globe. As before, we hope that these efforts to expand the use of SSL encryption in our services motivate other companies to adopt SSL more broadly.

Posted by Michael Safyan, Software Engineer

Introducing a new local search experience across your devices

2012-03-05T12:43:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the Google Mobile Blog)

How often are you doing a Google search from your computer to find information about a place before going there? Now, next time you go to Google.com on your Android phone or iPhone, information about that place will be conveniently available under the new “Recent” icon. Calling, getting directions or seeing details about the places you just searched for is now only one tap away.

We provide this new convenience feature for users who have Web History enabled and are logged into Google when doing their search. Start by searching for a place on your PC or other devices, then login to Google.com’s mobile homepage and check the Recent icon. Information about previously searched places will be available under the Recent icon for about a day.

The new “Recent” icon shows information about places you have recently searched for on any of your devices. Try swiping to the right to see more icons for other categories of places.

Next time you are heading to a place you have recently searched for, no need to worry if you can’t remember the address or phone number. Just go to Google.com on your smartphone and tap on the “Recent” icon. We hope you find this new feature useful!

Posted by Junichi Uekawa, Software Engineer

Spice up your iGoogle page with new, immersive, full-page themes

2012-03-01T11:08:00.001-08:00

Last September we introduced some design changes to iGoogle for a more streamlined and consistent experience across Google products. Today, you can preview a few more improvements to iGoogle’s look and feel that simplify the page further while offering even more personalization.

You can now brighten up your iGoogle page by choosing from our new selection of beautiful and immersive full-page themes. We partnered with iStockphoto to bring your favorite Gmail themes to iGoogle - just pop open our theme directory to try them out. You can now share the best themes and gadgets with your friends on Google+ simply by clicking on the +1 button. You’ll also notice some new icons to access your settings, add gadgets, or change your theme. These icons, as well as a couple other minor changes to the page, bring more consistency with other Google products.

These new features are available globally, and if you’d like to try them out, just click on Switch to the new look in the bottom right of iGoogle. This will be rolling out to everyone as the default view in a few weeks, but if you'd like to temporarily revert back to the old look, you can do so via the settings menu.

Posted by Conrad Lo, Product Manager

Search quality highlights: 40 changes for February

2012-02-27T11:30:00.025-08:00

This month we have many improvements to celebrate. With 40 changes reported, that marks a new record for our monthly series on search quality. Most of the updates rolled out earlier this month, and a handful are actually rolling out today and tomorrow. We continue to improve many of our systems, including related searches, sitelinks, autocomplete, UI elements, indexing, synonyms, SafeSearch and more. Each individual change is subtle and important, and over time they add up to a radically improved search engine.

Here’s the list for February:

More coverage for related searches. [launch codename “Fuzhou”] This launch brings in a new data source to help generate the “Searches related to” section, increasing coverage significantly so the feature will appear for more queries. This section contains search queries that can help you refine what you’re searching for.
Tweak to categorizer for expanded sitelinks. [launch codename “Snippy”, project codename “Megasitelinks”] This improvement adjusts a signal we use to try and identify duplicate snippets. We were applying a categorizer that wasn’t performing well for our expanded sitelinks, so we’ve stopped applying the categorizer in those cases. The result is more relevant sitelinks.
Less duplication in expanded sitelinks. [launch codename “thanksgiving”, project codename “Megasitelinks”] We’ve adjusted signals to reduce duplication in the snippets for expanded sitelinks. Now we generate relevant snippets based more on the page content and less on the query.
More consistent thumbnail sizes on results page. We’ve adjusted the thumbnail size for most image content appearing on the results page, providing a more consistent experience across result types, and also across mobile and tablet. The new sizes apply to rich snippet results for recipes and applications, movie posters, shopping results, book results, news results and more.
More locally relevant predictions in YouTube. [project codename “Suggest”] We’ve improved the ranking for predictions in YouTube to provide more locally relevant queries. For example, for the query [lady gaga in ] performed on the US version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in times square], but for the same search performed on the Indian version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in India].
More accurate detection of official pages. [launch codename “WRE”] We’ve made an adjustment to how we detect official pages to make more accurate identifications. The result is that many pages that were previously misidentified as official will no longer be.
Refreshed per-URL country information. [Launch codename “longdew”, project codename “country-id data refresh”] We updated the country associations for URLs to use more recent data.
Expand the size of our images index in Universal Search. [launch codename “terra”, project codename “Images Universal”] We launched a change to expand the corpus of results for which we show images in Universal Search. This is especially helpful to give more relevant images on a larger set of searches.
Minor tuning of autocomplete policy algorithms. [project codename “Suggest”] We have a narrow set of policies for autocomplete for offensive and inappropriate terms. This improvement continues to refine the algorithms we use to implement these policies.
“Site:” query update [launch codename “Semicolon”, project codename “Dice”] This change improves the ranking for queries using the “site:” operator by increasing the diversity of results.
Improved detection for SafeSearch in Image Search. [launch codename "Michandro", project codename “SafeSearch”] This change improves our signals for detecting adult content in Image Search, aligning the signals more closely with the signals we use for our other search results.
Interval based history tracking for indexing. [project codename “Intervals”] This improvement changes the signals we use in document tracking algorithms.
Improvements to foreign language synonyms. [launch codename “floating context synonyms”, project codename “Synonyms”] This change applies an improvement we previously launched for English to all other languages. The net impact is that you’ll more often find relevant pages that include synonyms for your query terms.
Disabling two old fresh query classifiers. [launch codename “Mango”, project codename “Freshness”] As search evolves and new signals and classifiers are applied to rank search results, sometimes old algorithms get outdated. This improvement disables two old classifiers related to query freshness.
More organized search results for Google Korea. [launch codename “smoothieking”, project codename “Sokoban4”] This significant improvement to search in Korea better organizes the search results into sections for news, blogs and homepages.
Fresher images. [launch codename “tumeric”] We’ve adjusted our signals for surfacing fresh images. Now we can more often surface fresh images when they appear on the web.
Update to the Google bar. [project codename “Kennedy”] We continue to iterate in our efforts to deliver a beautifully simple experience across Google products, and as part of that this month we made further adjustments to the Google bar. The biggest change is that we’ve replaced the drop-down Google menu in the November redesign with a consistent and expanded set of links running across the top of the page.
Adding three new languages to classifier related to error pages. [launch codename "PNI", project codename "Soft404"] We have signals designed to detect crypto 404 pages (also known as “soft 404s”), pages that return valid text to a browser but the text only contain error messages, such as “Page not found.” It’s rare that a user will be looking for such a page, so it’s important we be able to detect them. This change extends a particular classifier to Portuguese, Dutch and Italian.
Improvements to travel-related searches. [launch codename “nesehorn”] We’ve made improvements to triggering for a variety of flight-related search queries. These changes improve the user experience for our Flight Search feature with users getting more accurate flight results.
Data refresh for related searches signal. [launch codename “Chicago”, project codename “Related Search”] One of the many signals we look at to generate the “Searches related to” section is the queries users type in succession. If users very often search for [apple] right after [banana], that’s a sign the two might be related. This update refreshes the model we use to generate these refinements, leading to more relevant queries to try.
International launch of shopping rich snippets. [project codename “rich snippets”] Shopping rich snippets help you more quickly identify which sites are likely to have the most relevant product for your needs, highlighting product prices, availability, ratings and review counts. This month we expanded shopping rich snippets globally (they were previously only available in the US, Japan and Germany).
Improvements to Korean spelling. This launch improves spelling corrections when the user performs a Korean query in the wrong keyboard mode (also known as an "IME", or input method editor). Specifically, this change helps users who mistakenly enter Hangul queries in Latin mode or vice-versa.
Improvements to freshness. [launch codename “iotfreshweb”, project codename “Freshness”] We’ve applied new signals which help us surface fresh content in our results even more quickly than before.
Web History in 20 new countries. With Web History, you can browse and search over your search history and webpages you've visited. You will also get personalized search results that are more relevant to you, based on what you’ve searched for and which sites you’ve visited in the past. In order to deliver more relevant and personalized search results, we’ve launched Web History in Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Morocco, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Estonia, Kuwait, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Nigeria, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Bosnia and Herzegowina, Azerbaijan, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Moldova, and Ghana. Web History is turned on only for people who have a Google Account and previously enabled Web History.
Improved snippets for video channels. Some search results are links to channels with many different videos, whether on mtv.com, Hulu or YouTube. We’ve had a feature for a while now that displays snippets for these results including direct links to the videos in the channel, and this improvement increases quality and expands coverage of these rich “decorated” snippets. We’ve also made some improvements to our backends used to generate the snippets.
Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal.
Improvements to English spell correction. [launch codename “Kamehameha”] This change improves spelling correction quality in English, especially for rare queries, by making one of our scoring functions more accurate.
Improvements to coverage of News Universal. [launch codename “final destination”] We’ve fixed a bug that caused News Universal results not to appear in cases when our testing indicates they’d be very useful.
Consolidation of signals for spiking topics. [launch codename “news deserving score”, project codename “Freshness”] We use a number of signals to detect when a new topic is spiking in popularity. This change consolidates some of the signals so we can rely on signals we can compute in realtime, rather than signals that need to be processed offline. This eliminates redundancy in our systems and helps to ensure we can continue to detect spiking topics as quickly as possible.
Better triggering for Turkish weather search feature. [launch codename “hava”] We’ve tuned the signals we use to decide when to present Turkish users with the weather search feature. The result is that we’re able to provide our users with the weather forecast right on the results page with more frequency and accuracy.
Visual refresh to account settings page. We completed a visual refresh of the account settings page, making the page more consistent with the rest of our constantly evolving design.
Panda update. This launch refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.
Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often rearchitect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable.
SafeSearch update. We have updated how we deal with adult content, making it more accurate and robust. Now, irrelevant adult content is less likely to show up for many queries.
Spam update. In the process of investigating some potential spam, we found and fixed some weaknesses in our spam protections.
Improved local results. We launched a new system to find results from a user’s city more reliably. Now we’re better able to detect when both queries and documents are local to the user.

And here are a few more changes we’ve already blogged about separately:

Posted by Amit Singhal, Senior VP and Google Fellow

Opening the Oscar (search) envelope

2012-02-24T11:43:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

Time to polish the champagne flutes and brush up on your movie trivia—it’s almost Oscar night again. Before you make any Oscar bets, get an edge by exploring Google Insights for Search. Out of the major entertainment awards shows (Tonys, Emmys, Grammys) the Oscars are the most popular in terms of search volume, and as we discovered last year, patterns in search behavior can help us predict which stars will go home with shiny gold statues. So without further delay, let’s open the (search) envelopes and see who the Oscar (may) go to this year.

Best Picture
Last year we found that for three years running, the films that won best picture had two things in common when it came to search data. First, the winning movies had all shown an upward trend in search volume for at least four consecutive weeks during the previous year. Second, within the U.S. the winning film had the highest percentage of its searches originating from the state of New York. Looking at search data for 2011, there were three films that satisfied these conditions—The King’s Speech, The Social Network and Black Swan. Our prediction was on the mark: The King’s Speech took home the Oscar in 2011.

This year, if we assume the two “winning conditions”—at least four consecutive weeks of increasing search volume plus highest regional interest from New York—will apply, then we can narrow down the nominees to a field of four: The Artist, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Midnight in Paris and War Horse. But how to go from four to one?

Let’s again look back at last year’s finalists. When you compare search query volumes for The King’s Speech, The Social Network and Black Swan, the winning film, The King’s Speech, had the lowest search volume throughout the year leading up to the Oscars. It was the underdog that took home the statue.

We tried the same test on the Best Picture nominees from 2010. The nominated movies in 2010 that met the two conditions were The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds. Once again, it was the the winning film, The Hurt Locker, that had lower search volume in 2009.

If the underdog trend holds this year, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close could be our surprise winner. If we go strictly by search popularity, however, The Artist or Midnight in Paris have the best chances—among our group of four, they’re currently blowing the competition out of the water.

If we’re having a popularity contest, it’s only fair to look at all nine nominees for best picture. A 2-step comparison shows that the most popular films by search volume are The Help and Martin Scorsese's Hugo.

Best Actor
Of this year’s five nominees for Best Actor, Brad Pitt (Moneyball) is clearly the most popular—searches for Brad in the last 12 months far outpace any of the other leading men, as was the case in 2009 when he was nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. However, it could be Brad’s famous good looks that have us searching, which brings about a good point: the most searched-for nominee doesn’t guarantee a win. James Franco had the highest search volume in 2011 but Colin Firth won, and in 2010, George Clooney was the most-searched nominee but Jeff Bridges took home the Oscar.

The pattern emerging over the past few years is that the winner is generally in the middle of the pack in terms of searches and has relatively steady search volume throughout the year. First-time nominee Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) fits that bill this year, but so does George Clooney (The Descendants). Maybe it will finally be George’s year to win Best Actor.

Best Actress
For the past three years, the eventual Best Actress winner has seen a spike of interest in the preceding December. Additionally, two of the three most recent winners have had the strongest regional interest within the U.S. from the cities of Los Angeles and New York City (2010 winner Sandra Bullock is the exception).

Among this year’s nominees, Rooney Mara is the clear breakout star, with a huge surge in search volume this past December for the young lead in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. However, it’s Meryl Streep who has the highest regional interest in NYC and while Rooney is popular in LA, she’s even more popular in San Francisco. So it could be her name that is announced when the envelope is opened—or not.

Of course, we don’t have a Magic 8-Ball or access to the names in those top-secret envelopes, so our predictions are just that—but it’s always enjoyable to look at how what people are interested in online plays out in the real world. As you prepare for your Oscar viewing parties this year, put a visit to Insights for Search on your checklist before the red carpet walk begins (fun fact: searches for [red carpet] peak at Oscar time every year). Between dry cleaning your tuxedo and making hors d'oeuvres, tune in to a pre-Oscar hangout on the +Good Morning America page, where the live discussion will be the fashion dos and don'ts of the big night. You can also stay up to date on all Oscar news on +Oscars, the official Google+ Page of the Academy Awards.

Posted by Rebecca Mall, Entertainment Account Executive, LA office

See upcoming concerts in search results

2012-02-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

I’m a big music fan, so I spend a lot of time searching for music bands and artists. When I hear a new song or a friend tells me about an artist I should check out, I search to watch their music videos, find out recent news about them, and to learn more about them in general. I can also see right on the results page which sites have songs or samples of songs that I can listen to.

But to me, music is best heard live, so it’s always exciting to find out that a band I love is coming to town. For fellow concert-goers, now when you search for bands or artists, you may see upcoming concert tour dates right on the results page if they’re playing in your area. If they aren’t touring near you, the new results for concerts won’t appear, but if the band happens to be coming to your town within the next few months, you can see the concert dates listed under the band’s official website. You can then click on the band’s official site to learn more or click on other web pages to learn more about the event or to buy tickets.

For example, I was searching for the [black keys] to listen to some of their music online. I wasn’t explicitly looking for their tour schedule, but now I know I should keep my calendar clear on Friday May 4, since they will be coming back to the Bay Area, and I remember how great they were at Outside Lands last year:

To find upcoming concert tour dates, we aggregate relevant data for events from multiple websites and show it under the band’s official website with links to the event sites where you can find out more about the event or purchase tickets.

If you have a website listing upcoming events and would like them to appear in search, you should add rich snippets markup to your web pages. After following the instructions to mark up your events, use the rich snippets testing tool to test your markup and see how it would appear on Google.

This is currently available to those searching on google.com in English, and we’ll continue to expand the feature to more countries in the future.

Posted by Kavi Goel, Product Manager, Search

Helping you find what's in the mind's eye with improved related searches

2012-02-23T11:59:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

Today we’re making it easier for you to hone in on that perfect image or explore your topic visually with an update to related search links. Related search links have been around for awhile—they’re the row of blue links running across the top of your image search results—but today we’re making them more visual to help you find exactly what you’re looking for or just have fun exploring.

For example, when planning a trip to Greece, I may not know what places are worth a visit, so I search for [greece] on Image Search. Now, with more visual search links, I can hover over the links on the top of the results, like [santorini greece], and see a panel pop up with images of Santorini. Without having to type more words into the search box or clicking through, I can quickly glance at the pictures of Santorini. If I decide to click through, I find new links for further refined or related searches, such as [oia santorini greece] or [santorini greece sunset]. Now I’m sold, I want to see more Santorini images.

You’ll start to see these links whenever you search for images as we roll this change out globally over the next few weeks.

Posted by Peter Linsley, Product Manager

Find flights while on the go

2012-02-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

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

Planning trips is fun and exciting, and ideas for where to go on your next adventure can strike you when you're in the most unexpected location. Last week I met a friend for coffee, and he told me about his recent trip to Maui. His story and photos inspired me and I immediately made a note to myself to check flights to Hawaii at home.

Since we launched Flight Search back in September, we’ve been hard at work improving the features, increasing coverage and making it easy to find flight results directly from google.com on your desktop. Starting today, we're also making it easier to find flights departing from the US on your mobile device.

For example, when you search for [flights from Chicago to Daytona Beach] you’ll see a table that shows available flights, including duration and prices. You can adjust dates on the page, or click any flight to further research and book your trip.

The Flight Search feature on mobile browsers offers all the benefits of Flight Search on desktop:

Find flights quickly with results that load instantly and a list that’s easy to scan.
Discover places to go on a map - see ticket prices for various destinations by surfing the map. You can filter by price, airline, or flight duration.
Find the best time to go - Click the calendar icon to see what dates will get you low prices.

The feature is available on Android and iOS devices. To learn more about the Flight Search feature, see our tips at http://www.google.com/insidesearch/flights.html.

Posted by Gus Prevas, Software Engineer

Roses are red, violets are blue...here are some Valentine’s Day tips for you

2012-02-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

It’s Valentine’s Day, and all you need is love.

Well, maybe you need a few more things.

This year, lovebirds in the U.S. are pulling out all the stops and are expected to hit a 10-year spending high on romantic goods. Whether you’re looking for a box of chocolates or buying a diamond ring, we’ve taken notes on how Google can turn any last-minute Cupid into a polished Romeo. Think of us as Cyrano de Bergerac, whispering words of wisdom in your ear for dishes, dates and romantic inspiration.

Sweets for a sweetie
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Searches for [valentine’s day dinner], [valentine’s day recipes], [romantic dinner] and [romantic recipes] ramp up at the start at February, hitting their peak on the 14th.

If you’re whipping up a homemade treat, you can use Google Recipe view to search for thousands of heart-shaped cookie recipes, and tailor the ingredients (and the calorie count) for the best fit.

If you’re not a maestro in the kitchen yet, we can help. Peruse some trendy dishes and learn how to cook from YouTube’s Next Chefs, who have created a highlight reel of their best aphrodisiacs. We’re not playing favorites, but we do love the Sweetest Vegan’s red velvet beet cupcakes, which will come in handy for many couples—searches for [vegan valentines] have more than tripled since 2006.

Don’t know a truffle from a trifle? Then let a professional handle the meal. If you haven’t booked a table yet, you’re not alone: searches for [valentines day reservations] typically peak on February 9 and remain high through the holiday. For ideas, check out Zagat’s recommendations for romantic hotspots in your neighborhood. A word to the wise, though: If you’re planning on popping the question on Valentine’s Day, avoid dining out, as 69 percent of those surveyed in Zagat’s recent Valentine’s Day Survey feel that restaurant proposals are “cheesy.”

Perfect planners and last-minute cupids
Women have a head start on the menfolk when it comes to Valentine’s Day gifts, searching earlier (and more often) than their male counterparts—about 160 percent more since January.

The staple romantic gifts haven’t lost their appeal. Searches for [jewelry gifts] have grown over 10 percent, searches for [flower delivery] have increased nearly 20 percent, and searches for [couples massage] have jumped nearly 50 percent over last Valentine’s Day.

To impress, some folks are thinking outside the (heart-shaped) box. For the daring, create your own [valentines scavenger hunt]—searches are up more than 20 percent from last year. Or, add a personal touch—searches for [personalized valentines day gifts] are up over 20 percent compared to last year and searches for [homemade valentines gift] are up over 60 percent since last year. The last-minute lovers don’t have to despair, though. Visit Google Shopping to find gift ideas and filter results to see which items are in stock nearby.

Celebrating solo
Celebrating Valentine’s Day solo doesn’t mark you as a Miss (or Mr.) Lonelyhearts. Instead, treat yourself to a night on the town. View interactive results for nearby movie showtimes on your mobile phone, and know that if you indulge your inner cynic by skipping the rom com and catching a horror film, you won’t be alone: in the past 30 days, searches for [horror movie] are 230 percent higher than searches for [romantic movie].

Vive la romance
Everyone loves a fairytale ending, so let’s wrap up with two final ways to make your heart grow two sizes too big today. For a close-up look at romance at its finest, check out the “Awww: Romantic Proposals” YouTube Slam. Vote for your favorite mushy, creative, artistic, or—in one case—magic proposal.

Finally, today’s homepage doodle gives a nod to love, both young and old. Though “Cold, Cold Heart” plays in the background, we bet yours will warm just a bit.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

Posted by Jim Lecinski, Vice President, U.S. Sales

Improving health searches, because your health matters

2012-02-13T09:15:00.000-08:00

Every day, people search on Google for health information. Many of these searches relate to symptoms they or their loved ones may be experiencing. You might be trying to understand why you’ve had a headache every morning for a week or why your child has a tummy ache all of a sudden. Our data shows that a search for symptoms is often followed by a search for a related condition.

To make the process easier, now when you search for a symptom or set of symptoms, you'll often see a list of possibly related health conditions that you can use to refine your search. The list is generated by our algorithms that analyze data from pages across the web and surface the health conditions that appear to be related to your search.

For example, if you search for [abdominal pain on my right side], you’ll be able to quickly see some potentially related conditions and learn more about them by clicking on the links in the list.

The list of health conditions you see is aggregated from what’s written on the web about the symptoms you searched. The list is not authored by doctors and of course is not advice from medical experts.

We hope this feature makes it easier and faster to research symptoms and related health conditions on Google. We’re humbled by the number of people who turn to Google with such important questions, and we are working especially hard to make our search results even more useful for health searches.

Posted by Roni Zeiger, MD, Chief Health Strategist

17 search quality highlights: January

2012-02-03T13:00:00.000-08:00

Here’s the latest installment of our monthly series on “search quality highlights,” with 17 new quality improvements to read about for January. In addition to this month’s big announcement of Search plus Your World, you’ll find short summaries of other changes to our high-quality sites algorithm, spelling systems, snippets, search preferences, speed, freshness and much more. It’s all part of our ongoing effort to be transparent about how search works and the ways Google is constantly evolving to answer your questions.

Here’s the list for January:

Fresher results. [launch codename “nftc”] We made several adjustments to the freshness algorithm that we released in November. These are minor updates to make sure we continue to give you the freshest, most relevant results.
Faster autocomplete. [launch codename “Snappy Suggest”, project codename “Suggest”] We made improvements to our autocomplete system to deliver your predicted queries much faster.
Autocomplete spelling corrections. [launch codename “Trivial”, project codename “Suggest”] This is an improvement to the spelling corrections used in autocomplete, making those corrections more consistent with the spelling corrections used in search. This launch targets corrections where the spelling change is very small.
Better spelling full-page replacement. [launch codenames “Oooni”, “sgap”, project codename “Full-Page Replacement”] When we’re confident in a spelling correction we automatically show results for the corrected query and let you know we’re “Showing results for [cheetah]” (rather than, say, “cheettah”). We made a couple of changes to improve the accuracy of this feature.
Better spelling corrections for rare queries. This change improves one of the models that we use to make spelling corrections. The result is more accurate spell corrections for a number of rare queries.
Improve detection of recurrent event pages. [launch codename “neseda”] We made several improvements to how we determine the date of a document. As a result, you’ll see fresher, more timely results, particularly for pages discussing recurring events.
High-quality sites algorithm improvements. [launch codenames “PPtl” and “Stitch”, project codename “Panda”] In 2011, we launched the Panda algorithm change, targeted at finding more high-quality sites. We improved how Panda interacts with our indexing and ranking systems, making it more integrated into our pipelines. We also released a minor update to refresh the data for Panda.
Cross-language refinements. [launch codename Xiangfan] Previously, we only generated related searches based on the display language. With this change, we also attempt to auto-detect the language of the original query to generate related search queries. Now, a user typing a query in French might see French query refinements, even if her language is set to English.
English on Google Saudi Arabia. Users in Saudi Arabia can now more easily choose an English interface to search on google.com.sa.
Improved scrolling for Image Search. Previously when you scrolled in Image Search, only the image results would move while the top and side menus were pinned in place. We changed the scrolling behavior to make it consistent with our main search results and the other search modes, where scrolling moves the entire page.
Improved image search quality. [launch codename “endearo”, project codename “Image Search”] This is a small improvement to our image search ranking algorithm. In particular, this change helps images with high-quality landing pages rank higher in our image search results.
More relevant related searches. Sometimes at the bottom of the screen you’ll see a section called “Searches related to” with other queries you may want to try. With this change, we’ve updated the model for generating related searches, resulting in more useful query refinements.
Blending of news results. [launch codename “final-destination”, project codename “Universal Search”] We improved our algorithm that decides which queries should show news results, making it more responsive to realtime trends. We also made an adjustment to how we blend news results in Universal Search. Both of these changes help news articles appear in your search results when they are relevant.
Automatically disable Google Instant based on computer speed. [project codename “Psychic Search”] Google Instant has long had the ability to automatically turn itself off if you’re on a slow internet connection. Now Instant can also turn itself off if your computer is slow. If Instant gets automatically disabled, we continue to check your computer speed and will re-enable Instant if your performance improves. We’ve also tweaked search preferences so you can always have Instant on or off, or have it change automatically.

And here’s a recap of some other January improvements we’ve already blogged about:

Search plus Your World
Page layout algorithm improvement
Better titles in search results [launch codename “davevanronk”]

Stay tuned for more in the coming months. We have some exciting ideas for how we can continue innovating on transparency in search, and we hope you enjoy what’s on the way.

Posted by Ben Gomes, Google Fellow

Find hotels by travel time

2012-01-20T09:07:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wanted to visit somewhere while on vacation and realized that getting there from your hotel would be a real trek? Wouldn’t it be great if you could specify how close you wanted to be to that place when searching for a hotel?

Last year we introduced Hotel Finder, an experimental tool to help you find hotels, and today, we’ve extended its functionality with a new way to search: ‘Hotels by Travel Time’. Now if you go to Hotel Finder and enter [Empire State Building] in the search box, you’ll see the hotels that you can get to by public transport within 20 minutes.

The areas you can easily reach from your point of interest are spotlighted on the map. If 20 minutes is too long to travel or you like to get around on foot, you can easily change the travel time or your mode of transport (e.g., walking, transit). The map will update automatically to show a new spotlighted area and the nearby hotels. You can also drag the red pin to find hotels near other places you might like to visit.

This feature is not only for tourists. You might be travelling on business and want to make sure you can get to the office or that conference center. Check out this example of hotels near [Canary Wharf, London].

As well as searching by travel time, you can define your own area to search within (choose “Hotels in selected area”) or find hotels in a city’s most popular locations:

To try it out, simply go to Hotel Finder, search for a city or a point of interest and select “Hotels by travel time”. Keep in mind that Hotel Finder and 'Hotels by travel time' are experimental and filtering by transit time is only available in cities where we have partnered with local transit agencies to integrate their data into Google Maps. We’d love to hear what you think: just click the “Send Feedback” link in the right-hand corner of Hotel Finder.

Posted by Konrad Gianno, Software Engineer

Page layout algorithm improvement

2012-01-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the Webmaster Central Blog)

In our ongoing effort to help you find more high-quality websites in search results, today we’re launching an algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result.

As we’ve mentioned previously, we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.

This algorithmic change noticeably affects less than 1% of searches globally. That means that in less than one in 100 searches, a typical user might notice a reordering of results on the search page. If you believe that your website has been affected by the page layout algorithm change, consider how your web pages use the area above-the-fold and whether the content on the page is obscured or otherwise hard for users to discern quickly. You can use our Browser Size tool, among many others, to see how your website would look under different screen resolutions.

If you decide to update your page layout, the page layout algorithm will automatically reflect the changes as we re-crawl and process enough pages from your site to assess the changes. How long that takes will depend on several factors, including the number of pages on your site and how efficiently Googlebot can crawl the content. On a typical website, it can take several weeks for Googlebot to crawl and process enough pages to reflect layout changes on the site.

Overall, our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus on specific algorithm tweaks. This change is just one of the over 500 improvements we expect to roll out to search this year. As always, please post your feedback and questions in our Webmaster Help forum.

Posted by Matt Cutts, Distinguished Engineer

Doodle 4 Google: “If I could travel in time, I’d visit...”

2012-01-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.

Starting today, we’d like to invite K-12 students in the U.S. to participate in our fifth annual U.S. Doogle 4 Google contest. Draw your rendition of the Google logo and you may see it on the ultimate gallery: the Google homepage. The winning doodler will also take home a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant for his or her school.

The theme for this year’s contest is “If I could travel in time, I’d visit...”. That could mean visiting a past, present or future setting—whether it’s traveling back in time to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, to the future to witness everyday space travel, or to just a few moments ago to relive a poignant experience.

Building on last year’s record-breaking participation (107,000 entries!), we’ve made a few enhancements to the 2012 contest. First, we’re opening Doodle 4 Google up to an even wider audience—with a winner from every state. There will be five finalists and one winner per state, so everyone will have a local doodle champion to cheer on. From these 50 State Winners, we’ll find 5 National Finalists and the lucky National Winner.

We’re also partnering with Crayola this year and the winning doodler’s artwork will appear on a special edition of the 64-crayon box—a first!

Participating is easier than ever, since we’ve eliminated the registration step. All you need to do is submit your child’s or student’s artwork by March 20 with a signed and completed entry form.

Contest judging starts with Google employees and a panel of guest judges—including multi-platinum singer Katy Perry, Phineas and Ferb creator and executive producer Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, and recording artist Jordin Sparks, as well as other great illustrators and artists—who will help us pick the state finalists and winners. Then, on May 2, we’ll put the 50 state winners up for public vote. All 50 State Winners will be flown to New York City for the national awards ceremony on May 17, with the winning doodle appearing on May 18.

The doodles by the 50 State Winners will be displayed at The New York Public Library's historic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street in an exhibition open to the public over the summer. We’ll also be partnering with museums across the country to display the artwork of the state finalists in areas near their homes.

For more details, check out google.com/doodle4google, where you’ll find full contest rules and entry forms. Happy doodling and good luck!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Product Management

Search, plus Your World

2012-01-10T06:29:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

Google Search has always been about finding the best results for you. Sometimes that means results from the public web, but sometimes it means your personal content or things shared with you by people you care about. These wonderful people and this rich personal content is currently missing from your search experience. Search is still limited to a universe of webpages created publicly, mostly by people you’ve never met. Today, we’re changing that by bringing your world, rich with people and information, into search.

Search is pretty amazing at finding that one needle in a haystack of billions of webpages, images, videos, news and much more. But clearly, that isn’t enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the web, the people you know and things they’ve shared with you, as well as the people you don’t know but might want to... all from one search box.

We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships. We began this transformation with Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step in this direction by introducing three new features:

Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page;
Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and,
People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.

Together, these features combine to create Search plus Your World. Search is simply better with your world in it, and we’re just getting started.

Personal Results

Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web. With your world in search, you can find:

Google+ posts. You can find relevant Google+ posts from friends talking about an amazing trip they just took, whether they’ve shared privately with you or publicly. You’ll find links shared by your friends, such as activities, restaurants and other things they enjoyed on their trip.
Photos. You can find beautiful vacation photos from your friends right in your search results page. You can also find your own private photos from Google+ and Picasa, based on captions, comments and album title.

Personal Results: a family story

As a child, my favorite fruit was Chikoo, which is exceptionally sweet and tasty. A few years back when getting a family dog, we decided to name our sweet little puppy after my favorite fruit. Over the years we have privately shared many pictures of Chikoo (our dog) with our family. To me, the query [chikoo] means two very sweet and different things, and today’s improvements give me the magical experience of finding both the Chikoos I love, right in the results page.

This is search that truly knows me, and gives me a result page that only I can see. And while I get a nice mix of personal results with results from the web, I can also click the link at the top of the results page (red arrow) for the option to search only within my world.

Profiles in Search

Every day, there are hundreds of millions of searches for people. Sometimes, it’s hard to find the person you’re looking for. Once you do find him or her, there’s no quick way for you to actually interact. Starting today, you’ll have meaningful ways to connect with people instantly, right from the search results.

Now, typing just the first few letters of your friend’s name brings up a personalized profile prediction in autocomplete. Selecting a predicted profile takes you to a results page for your friend, which includes information from their Google+ profile and relevant web results that may be related to them. And you can have this personal experience instantaneously, thanks to Google Instant. So when I search for [ben smith], I now find my dear friend Ben every time, instead of the hundreds of other Ben Smiths out there (no offense to all of them!).

In addition, you’ll find profile autocomplete predictions for various prominent people from Google+, such as high-quality authors from our authorship pilot program.

Once you select that profile, if you’re a signed-in Google+ user, you’ll also see a button to add them to your circles right on your search results page.

People and Pages

As I mentioned earlier, behind most queries are communities. Starting today, if you search for a topic like [music] or [baseball], you might see prominent people who frequently discuss this topic on Google+ appearing on the right-hand side of the results page. You can connect with them on Google+, strike up meaningful conversations and discover entire communities in a way that simply wasn’t possible before.

Unprecedented security, transparency and control

When it comes to security and privacy, we set a high bar for Search plus Your World. Since some of the information you’ll now find in search results, including Google+ posts and private photos, is already secured by SSL encryption on Google+, we have decided that the results page should also have the same level of security and privacy protection. That's part of why we were the first major search engine to turn on search via SSL by default for signed-in users last year. This means when you’re signed in to Google, your search results—including your private content—are protected by the same high standards of encryption as your messages in Gmail.

We also want to be transparent about how our features work and give you control over how to use them. With today’s changes, we provide interface elements and control settings like those you’ll find in Google+. For example, personal results are clearly marked as Public, Limited or Only you. Additionally, people in your results are clearly marked with the Google+ circle they are in, or as suggested connections.

We’re also introducing a prominent new toggle on the upper right of the results page where you can see what your search results look like without personal content. With a single click, you can see an unpersonalized view of search results.

That means no results from your friends, no private information and no personalization of results based on your Web History. This toggle button works for an individual search session, but you can also make this the default in your Search Settings. We provide separate control in Search Settings over other contextual signals we use, including location and language.

That's unprecedented transparency and control over personal search results.

A beautiful journey begins

Search plus Your World will become available over the next few days to people who are signed in and searching on https://www.google.com in English.

While there may be 7 billion people and 197 million square miles on Earth, a septillion stars and a trillion webpages, we spend our short, precious lives living in a particular town, with particular friends and family, orbiting a single star and relying on a tiny slice of the world’s information. Our dream is to have technology enable everyone to experience the richness of all their information and people around them.

We named our company after the mathematical number googol as an aspiration toward indexing the countless answers on webpages, but that’s only part of the picture. The other part is people, and that’s what Search plus Your World is all about.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow

30 search quality highlights (with codenames!): December

2012-01-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Today we’re continuing our monthly series with details about many of the improvements we make to search. For the month of December, you’ll find a list of 30 search improvements, 9 of which we’ve blogged about previously. In addition, to have a little fun we’re including a sampling of codenames along with the list.

Codenames make changes easier to talk about and remember, and they can also be a lot of fun. You might remember “Panda” and “Caffeine,” but you probably don’t remember last month’s “Top result selection code rewrite.” That’s why many of the search quality improvements we make have internal codenames.

To give you just one example, our old question-answering feature in search was codenamed “DAFFIE,” which stood for the “Database of All Fact Fiction Information and Exaggeration.” In 2010 the team did a complete overhaul of the system and released a new short answers feature. Amit Singhal, thinking of Daffy Duck, decided to codename the new system “Porky Pig”, because Porky Pig was trying to kill Daffy Duck. The team laughed thinking that Amit was just confused (everyone knows Elmer Fudd is the hunter). But, it turns out Amit was right, as he often is. In 1937 in the original cartoon to feature Daffy Duck, Porky Pig was in fact hunting Daffy.

Here’s the list for December:

Image Search landing page quality signals. [launch codename “simple”] This is an improvement that analyzes various landing page signals for Image Search. We want to make sure that not only are we showing you the most relevant images, but we are also linking to the highest quality source pages.
More relevant sitelinks. [launch codename “concepts”, project codename “Megasitelinks”] We improved our algorithm for picking sitelinks. The result is more relevant sitelinks; for example, we may show sitelinks specific to your metropolitan region, which you can control with your location setting.
Soft 404 Detection. Web servers generally return the 404 status code when someone requests a page that doesn’t exist. However, some sites are configured to return other status codes, even though the page content might explain that the page was not found. We call these soft 404s (or “crypto” 404s) and they can be problematic for search engines because we aren’t sure if we should ignore the pages. This change is an improvement to how we detect soft 404s, especially in Russian, German and Spanish. For all you webmasters out there, the best practice is still to always use the correct response code.
More accurate country-restricted searches. [launch codename “greencr”] On domains other than .com, users have the option to see only results from their particular country. This is a new algorithm that uses several signals to better determine where web documents are from, improving the accuracy of this feature.
More rich snippets. We improved our process for detecting sites that qualify for shopping, recipe and review rich snippets. As a result, you should start seeing more sites with rich snippets in search results.
Better infrastructure for autocomplete. This is an infrastructure change to improve how our autocomplete algorithm handles spelling corrections for query prefixes (the beginning part of a search).
Better spam detection in Image Search. [launch codename “leaf”] This change improves our spam detection in Image Search by extending algorithms we already use for our main search results.
Google Instant enhancements for Japanese. For languages that use non-Latin characters, many users use a special IME (Input Method Editor) to enter queries. This change works with browsers that are IME-aware to better handle Japanese queries in Google Instant.
More accurate byline dates. [launch codename “foby”] We made a few improvements to how we determine what date to associate with a document. As a result, you’ll see more accurate dates annotating search results.
Live results for NFL and college football. [project codename “Live Results”] We’ve added new live results for NFL.com and ESPN’s NCAA Football results. These results now provide the latest scores, schedules and standings for your favorite football teams.
Improved dataset for related queries. We are now using an improved dataset on term relationships to find related queries. We sometimes include results for queries that are related to your original search, and this improvement leads to results from more relevant related queries.
Related query improvements. [launch codename “lyndsy”] Sometimes we fetch results for queries that are related to the original query but have fewer words. We made several changes to our algorithms to make them more conservative and less likely to introduce results without query words.
Better lyrics results. [launch codename “baschi”, project codename “Contra”] This change improves our result quality for lyrics searches.
Tweak to +1 button on results page. As part of our continued effort to deliver a beautifully simple user experience across Google products, we’ve made a subtle tweak to how the +1 button appears on the results page. Now the +1 button will only appear when you hover over a result or when the result has already been +1’d.
Better spell correction in Vietnamese. [project codename “Pho Viet”] We launched a new Vietnamese spelling model. This will help give more accurate spelling predictions for Vietnamese queries.
Upcoming events at venues. We've improved the recently released places panel for event venues. For major venues, we now show up to three upcoming events on the right of the page. Try it for [staples center los angeles] or [paradise rock club boston].
Improvements to image size signal. [launch codename “matter”] This is an improvement to how we use the size of images as a ranking signal in Image Search. With this change, you’ll tend to see images with larger full-size versions.
Improved Hebrew synonyms. [launch codename “SweatNovember”, project codename “Synonyms”] This update refines how we handle Hebrew synonyms across multiple languages. Context matters a lot for translation, so this change prevents us from using translated synonyms that are not actually relevant to the query context.
Safer searching. [launch codename “Hoengg”, project codename "SafeSearch"] We updated our SafeSearch tool to provide better filtering for certain queries when strict SafeSearch is enabled.
Encrypted search available on new regional domains. Google now offers encrypted search by default on google.com for signed-in users, but it’s not the default on our other regional domains (eg: google.fr for France). Now users in the UK, Germany and France can opt in to encrypted search by navigating directly to an SSL version of Google Search on their respective regional domains: https://www.google.co.uk, https://www.google.de and https://www.google.fr.
Faster mobile browsing. [launch codename “old possum”, project codename “Skip Redirect”] Many websites redirect smartphone users to another page that is optimized for smartphone browsers. This change uses the final smartphone destination url in our mobile search results, so you can bypass all the redirects and load the target page faster.

For completeness, here’s a recap of improvements we’ve already blogged about since last time:

Posted by Pandu Nayak, Member of Technical Staff

Test your creativity with our search caption challenge

2011-12-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

Our main goal at Google Search is to bring you the most relevant and useful results as quickly as possible. But, we are aware that often that is only part of your task or journey. Sometimes, you need more than simple results. You might want to learn, to discover, to be entertained or get insights.

Insights can happen when you least expect them. To improve their chances, it's good to try other things, or do things differently once in awhile. As a lifelong fan and connoisseur of New Yorker style cartoons, I always believed in the power of humor not just to entertain but to enlighten. I have tried to connect humor to everything I do (although, I have to admit, not always successfully). The best cartoonists possess great insights, which they illustrate in a clever package that we can consume in seconds and yet remember for years.

With all of this in mind, today we’re connecting Google search and cartoons through a search caption challenge. Cartoon caption contests have a long history dating back at least to the 1930s, as can be seen in this example I found from Ballyhoo magazine. For our modern version, we worked with artists like Matthew Diffee, Emily Flake, Christoph Niemann, Danny Shanahan and Jim Woodring, who created cartoons that place characters in unusual, interesting and funny situations—all with a common twist. In each cartoon, one of the characters is doing a Google search. We've left it to you to imagine what they'd be searching for at that moment, and left the caption blank for you to fill in with your answer.

To participate, go to Inside Search and submit your idea. Your caption will appear on the site, and you can share it with friends via a unique link. You can also vote on your favorite submissions and the most popular will rise to the top.

We hope this game helps you think in a way you wouldn't otherwise, and maybe get some insights. Or just have fun.

Posted by Udi Manber, VP of Engineering and Cartoons

Santa Search it!

2011-12-19T10:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes music makes learning easier. With this in mind, a few of us Googlers decided to make a search tip rap music video to help you, and Saint Nick, navigate the holidays.

Hopefully, these tricks will help make your holiday season easier. And if you found our video as helpful as Santa did, feel free to share it with a loved one. Remember, re-gifting is okay when sharing search tips.

Happy Holidays!

Posted by Matt Kane, Content and User Education Specialist

Exploring art from the Met -- wherever you find it

2011-12-16T13:51:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wanted to learn more about a piece of art than what’s on the placard next to it, or find out more about an artist’s life and how a piece fits into it? What about outside the museum -- the artwork on your favorite book’s cover, or a poster you really like at a bus stop?

We’ve teamed with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to bring their art collection to life in Google Goggles. We want art patrons to be able to bridge the physical art world with the online world in new, easy-to-use ways. So now no matter where you spot an image of art from the Met’s collection, you can simply snap a picture of it with Goggles and get detailed information about its history, the bibliography of its creator, or even the story of the collection -- including info from the recently launched mobile-optimized version of the Met’s website.

Google Goggles’ image recognition abilities work both inside the Met where wireless is available (it’s expanding rapidly) and outside as well. That means that anywhere you can take a picture and connect to the web, whether you’re looking at artwork in books, magazines, or on billboards, you can identify and begin interacting with the art. If you really enjoy a piece of art, Goggles will let you share your find with a friend or help you buy a copy for your home. And if you just want to remember a piece to enjoy later, you can use Goggles Search History to pick and choose pieces to revisit -- in effect, creating your own virtual art collection.

The Met has provided us over 76,000 artwork images to index. Thousands of these aren’t on display at the moment -- so you can actually learn about works you won’t find in the galleries. With over 340,000 works of art from the Met accessible online, there’s plenty more to come. Learn more about how to use Google Goggles, and have fun exploring!

Posted by Matt Bridges, Technical Lead, Google Goggles

Rich Snippet Instructional Videos

2011-12-16T10:14:00.000-08:00

(cross-posted to the Webmaster Central Blog)

When users come to Google, they have a pretty good idea of what they’re looking for, but they need help deciding which result might have the information that best suits their needs. So, the challenge for Google is to make it very clear to our users what content exists on a page in both a useful and concise manner. That’s one reason we have rich snippets.

Essentially, rich snippets provide you with the ability to help Google highlight aspects of your page. Whether your site contains information about products, recipes, events or apps, a few simple additions to your markup can result in more engagement with your content -- and potentially more traffic to your site.

To help you get started or fine tune your rich snippets, we’ve put together a series of tutorial videos for webmasters of all experience levels. These videos provide guidance as you mark up your site so that Google is better able to understand your content. We can use that content to power the rich snippets we display for your pages. Check out the videos below to get started:

For more information on how to use rich snippets markup for your site, visit our Help Center.

Posted by Alejandro Goyen, Product Manager

Supporting users by answering a different kind of query

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

Imagine Bob Dylan asking to hear the thoughts of every audience member at Woodstock ‘69 and you’ll get a glimpse of what we’re inviting when we say, “Give us feedback.” With hundreds of millions of users, Google Search may have more customers than any other product on the planet. And, like any customers, these hundreds of millions of people need support. Perhaps not surprisingly, in 2011 we had nearly 9 million visits to our Search Help Forum. With an ever-changing product and a diverse user base, keeping our ears attuned to what people are saying is a very interesting challenge, and one we’ve taken seriously.

Of course, there’s more to providing support than just listening. It involves in-person and online interaction, targeted education and online help resources, and continuous product refinements based on feedback. Supporting our users means engaging with them and taking action. To do this we combine two of Google’s biggest strengths: building for scalability and continuous product refinement.

Providing scalable support
When it comes to providing support for search, working at scale is our bread and butter. We reach nearly 320,000 users per day through our Help Center, which is available in over 40 languages. It’s full of articles and videos to explain search features and answer users’ most frequently asked questions. We also continually refine old content and publish new content so that when you click on “Search help”, the information you read is up-to-date. Since Google Help Centers, as a unit, rank 12th on the list of most visited Google properties, quality and relevance is of the utmost importance. We also try to surface help content in our products as well. For example, you’ll often find “Learn more” links on the results page when we launch a new feature or show you an alert message. We also recently linked to an educational video about SafeSearch from the Google Images homepage so that users can easily learn how to strictly filter their search results.

There’s also a wealth of knowledge in our user base that, when shared, can be a very powerful resource. In our Help Forum, our search-savvy superusers called “Top Contributors” share tips and best practices with the community every day. We also have over 30 Google product managers, engineers, and community managers who pop in to help answer questions, monitor launch feedback, and look for issues and feature requests. Just this year, Googlers have posted over 3,500 times and Top Contributors over 9,000 times. In partnership with our Search Education Evangelism team, we also venture into the classroom in order to teach students, librarians, and teachers how to get the most out of Google Search. By equipping educators with best practices for searching, we can scalably reach the next generation of Internet users.

We work at scale because, frankly, we have to. Even if every Google employee worked full-time answering user questions, we still couldn’t talk with even a small percentage of our users or website owners. Since hundreds of millions of people use Google, and there are more than 200 million websites online, the only way for us to support our user base is through scalable solutions like videos, blogs, documentation, forums, and other means.

Translating feedback into action
You have many options for sharing feedback with us. Some reports come through our various contact forms in the Help Center and others via the forum or the Give us feedback link on the bottom of the results page. You can also turn to social media to seek help on a particular feature. Regardless of how you share feedback, we try to stay abreast of the issues you face. When we do find a bug, we work to fix it as soon as possible. Does that mean that we page engineers at 3:00am to immediately fix bugs? Sometimes, yes! More often, though, we collaborate with our users and our product managers and engineers by gathering information on issues. Often, an engineer or product manager will respond to a user directly in our forum in order to better understand the situation or to announce that the bug has been fixed.

To help keep our team accountable for addressing user feedback, we create a quarterly list of our top user issues and work to address them with folks from all levels in the company. The search team is not afraid of tackling tough problems, but it can take some time to come to agreement on an approach and implement it. This doesn’t mean that we fix every problem, as many of you know. We recognize that there is a lot of room for improvement whether in our rankings, our UI, or by fixing minor bugs. The good news is that we’re quickly aware when there are serious issues and we keep working hard to address them.

While every change we make is to a some extent motivated by user feedback and testing, here are a few examples of changes that were largely inspired by the feedback we've seen in our help forums and across the web:

Verbatim search tool: For all of you who told us that you wanted remove synonyms, spelling refinements, and personalization from your results, we added this new tool to the left panel of the results page.
Google Security Center: In response to many of you reporting erroneous redirects when clicking on a result, we launched an entirely new security center including educational content about malware.
Results per page preference: As a result of your feedback following the launch of Google Instant, we greyed out the results per page preference when you have Instant enabled.
Ability to hide sites: Because you requested to permanently exclude certain results from your results pages, we made it possible for you to block a particular site from appearing.

Support isn’t just about issue resolution or education. It’s about relationships and showing the human side of the knowledge engine that our users have come to love. We want you to tell us how we can improve your personal Google experience because, ultimately, we want to delight you. It’s important to know that by sharing your thoughts, you’re not just exercising free speech, you’re helping to shape the future of search.

Posted by Kelly Fee, Community Manager

Clicks and impressions for authors

2011-12-14T15:35:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on the Webmaster Central Blog)

With the latest improvements to the way authorship annotations look in search and the addition of authorship to Google News, authors have been really excited about getting more visibility, and users benefit from seeing the name, photo, and way to connect with the person who created the content.

Authors have also been giving us a lot of feedback on what else they'd like to see, so today we're introducing “Author Stats” in Webmaster Tools that shows you how often your content is showing up on the Google search results page. If you associate your content with your Google Profile either via e-mail verification or a simple link, you can visit Webmaster Tools to see how many impressions and clicks your content got on the Google search results page. Check out what Matt Cutts would see for his content:

To see your information, go to google.com/webmasters and login with the same username you use for your Google+ Profile. On the left hand panel, you can see “Author Stats” under the “Labs” section. This is an experimental feature so we’re continuing to iterate and improve, but we wanted to get early feedback from you. You can e-mail us at authorship-pilot@google.com if you run into any issues or have feedback.

If you’re a content creator interested in learning more about authorship, check out our Help Center.

Posted by Javier Tordable, Software Engineer