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Google Updates Its Face
whereiseljefe writes "About 12:00 am Central Time, at least when I saw it, Google changed it's face. Before it was a simplistic search engine, with a minimal front page, and now has become even more so. Those pretty tabs we have become accustomed to are now gone, and in the search results, the "summary" section at the top is now a faded blue bar (see here with a search returning ads). And the ads are a little more low key. Nice to know they are cutting back on their interface rather than adding spastically like Yahoo." Other folks noted that they've added Froogle and Local Directory pages have now been given links on the front page. Which is good, since inclusion in the main page tends to mean ready for prime time.
Google also announced their web alerts at the same time. Looks interesting, but not as feature complete as Google Alert which has been around for some time.
This has been around for a while. It was completely random for a while (for testing one would assume). I used to have a bookmark that would toggle the look back and forth, but I seem to have misplaced it.
I hate sigs.
The old Google used to do this too - the term was underlined and you could click on it when there was a matching entry in dictionary.com. Obviously it wasn't prominent enough, and so they explicitly noted the definition link in this new version.
You're thinking of Yahoo! the web portal. Yahoo!'s search engine page looks pretty plain to me. They haven't added anything to it.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
If you guys use Google's adsense, you might have noticed that have lot of new themes as well. I guess, to make the Ads blend in more with your webpages, and make them lowkey.
P.S. Google Adsense is Ad banner engine, using which you can add Ads on your website and generate some ca$h
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
They've been randomly testing it on various people. I first saw it at least a month ago; I think it's at least a few weeks older than that.
not all the tabs are gone. if you go to directory.google.com, the tabs are still there(as of 8am CST).
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
I find it interesting to see the slight variations of Google...geeky although it might seem - when I type http://www.google.com/ I am thrown to http://www.google.be/, so when I really want http://www.google.com/ I type http://www.google.com./ instead of using the "Go to Google.com" button (which sends me to the google.com page with a "Go to Google Belgium" button.
The definitive address with the dot at the end introduces itself as Google English in the graphic, but still has a "Go to Google.com" button, whilst clearly being the genuine definitive http://www.google.com./...but this version doesn't have the link to Froogle... :)
Phew - that's enough links to Google for one day!
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
What's curious, it looks in Lynx almost the same as in Mozilla!
Say what you want, I like it!
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Turn on the "light" theme: no slashboxes, just black and white text. Then use Firefox with AdBlocker extension to block the ads.
Actually this isn't funny, this a real problem. It's not related to a particular version of Firefox, just a corrupt (in some way) installation. I had the problem with Mozilla 1.4 - it just started happening after a few months. It was really annoying. I installed Firefox 0.8 and it was fine. TehHustler: uninstall, remove your profile, installation directory, etc, and then try reinstalling it.
--
Twoflower
It may be that using the extra bandwidth is faster or more efficient than the extra http request for the external stylesheet.
That's extremely doubtful. In almost all cases, the stylesheet will not come from Google's servers. They are a popular website and the stylesheet rarely changes, so the chances of it being in somebody's browser cache are high, the chances of it being in their ISP's cache is high, the chance of it being in neither is extremely low.
Before link,
After link.
Hey, that's my password you are typing
One thing I like about Google is, while they put their searchers first, they also maintain very good relations with advertisers and site owners in general.
See this thread at WebMasterWorld - the Google rep is called GoogleGuy.
This sig all sigs devours
> For some searches you just get pages and pages of hits from "directory" sites...
Then do your part and Report a Spam Result.
This isn't new, Google has been tracking (some) clicks for years. Not everyone will see it for the same reason that not everyone has seen the new interface for the last couple of months: depending on the unique 'visitor id' in your Google preferences cookie, you may or may not.
As for the gloom-and-doom, IMHO this is totally benign. Google is most likely using these statistics to do usability testing ("How many links do people need to click on for this search to get what they're looking for?") or algorithm tweaking (actually using click-thrus as an input for PageRank).
It popped up randomly based on a randomly set cookie. You could also switch it on manually in preferences for maybe about a month now.
Do you have a
This is a sad day for the Internet: Google has truely shot itself in the foot. Where are the big banner ads? the pop-ups? Where are the unrelated search results, obfuscated by even more unrelated "sponsored" search "results"? And why is it useful? It's the sad truth, but alas Google is living in the past, instead of looking to the future. (- Insert obligotary "BSD is dead" parody here -)
Seriously though, wandering around on ZDNet, I found that Google has launched a personalized search engine. I tried it out, and I'll tell you what -- it kicks major ass. Let's say you are trying to look up information for a particular or specialized search term on the traditional Google, it may give you some random unrelated results, those of another domain you wish to consult about; on Google Personalized Search, you specify which domain you want to search about and it will provide you with more pertinent results. Kudos to Google, once again.
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -- Linus Torval
Look at Altavista now by yourself, you'll see how clean it is NOW. AltaVista means "a view from above". It is developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1995 in its Palo Alto research labs. (This is the reason you see DEC ads in its 1998 version) However, it was bought by Overture several years ago, which in turn was bought by Yahoo. Its database has been merged with that of AlltheWeb.
And if you search for define:something (like define:taoism), Google will gather definitions of that term from pages around the web. Handy if you are looking for a quick overview of what a term means in actual use, rather than in the dictionary.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
Before it was a simplistic search engine
Erm... I think the submitter was mistaking interface simplicity for implementation/functional simplicity. Google's a brilliant example of interface simplicity, but I doubt it's nearly so simple behind the facade. They also seem to nicely follow the rule of least suprise.