Google Searchology-First Take

Sapna Satagopan | May 18, 2007, 06:10 PM

The Google Searchology Event this week was slightly shorter than earlier ones, but packed a lot more punch for the press crowd. Key takeaways:

· Universal Search-In a significant change to their search interface, Google will include relevant formats such as news, video, local, book excerpts in their results. What I found interesting was the plan to blend, rather than section the results page to accommodate these results [Click here for Jupiter’s take on Search UI and Navigation]. My own search on ‘Spiderman’ returned image and web results, with tabs for what Google calls ‘contextual navigation’ –in this case, images, groups and video. As Marissa Mayer, VP of Products admitted, this is not the most perfect layout for results, they are still testing it out. There is an element of surprise, I would think, in looking at video results as the 4th,, local results as the 5th and images as the sixth result. However, it is certainly a way to change the way searchers think about results. Google justifiably has an awful lot of faith in its relevancy to be able to deliver a seamless search experience.

· Underused Features-are being given a push. Book Search, Google Groups are all a part of the integrated rollout.

· Forthcoming features-Google plans on Keyword mapping , by drilling a bit deeper than the current ‘Did you mean…’ spell check feature. Udi Manber [VP of Engineering] gave an example of a query ‘distance from Zurich Switzerland to Lake Como Italy’ will trigger a second search ‘train Milan Italy Zurich Switzerland’, the results of which will appear below the original results. I found this particularly interesting, the attempt at digging a bit deeper into searcher intent. No doubt, the web history will play an important factor in this as well. [Go here for an interesting analysis of search sites, including those that focus on user intent]. Language translation on the fly is in the works too. [Check Zia’s post on international sites here]

Bottomline for marketers? If the Google tests with interwoven elements proves successful, natural optimization strategies, especially for multimedia content should be geared and ready. Additionally, your optimized text content will now compete with videos, news and images for relevant searches.