Google New Search User Interface

One of the usability problems search engines are constantly facing is how to present results for the best user experience. Since Google introduced Universal Search in May 2007 we have not seen much change to the main interface but it looks like soon we will. The problem with usability is there is only a limited space to display search results from all the different channels or databases, for example, News results, Video results etc… and although Google does offer the opions at the top of the browser …

… they are not that visible. Well Google has been testing out a new 3 column interface which is similar to Bing and Yahoo and shows the search options in the left hand navigation. Danny Sullivan first mentioned this in November 2009 on Search Engine Land – Recently I have been getting the new user inteface also on Google UK and I am expecting that it will be rolled out very soon. It looks like this…

The main differences are…

a) There are 3 columns by default

b) The navigation in the left column shows all the “Show Options” navigation from the current user interface…

…and furthermore the search engine shows icons next to the most relevant search options. For example in the search above for “cricket” there are icons next to “News”, “Videos”, “Blogs” and “Images”, but if you search for something else like “e-learning” the options shown are “Everything”, “Books” and “Blogs”.

If you click on “News” you get a “Top Stories” link in the left nav. If you click on “Videos” you get the option to choose duration (short (< 4 min), medium, long(=20 min) as well as the high quality and the source (youtube, google, veoh, metacafe, etc…) . If you click on “Images” you get a number of very useful options which include size, type and color.

Another very cool addition is the Live Updates which shows real time search results, which include comments from Google Buzz, Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook as well as top stories… Note the slider bar at the top which shows the activity over the past 24 hours. You can move the slider to any part of that bar.

One thing that seems to be noticeably missing from the main icons in the left navigation is Google Product Search. These results are still included in the standard search results as “Shopping results” and appear near the top of the main results when searching for a product like a “laptop” or “freezer” but if you click on the “More search tools” link you will get the option to have “More shopping sites” or “Fewer shopping sites”. Maybe this is coming… we will have to wait and see.

SEO TIPS

For the past couple of years, your SEO efforts should have been focused on how to get visibility not only in the standard web results, but also in all of these other channels such as news search, video search, local search, etc… If not then it’s time for you to do some online SEO training and find out what you should be doing.

Once the new interface rolls out, the more of these channels you can appear in, the more visibility you will get, of course so long as these channels are relevant to finding your product, service or website.