Google's Test Search Engine

Bengt noted Google's SearchMash which is a testbed search engine. Google spokesbot says: "The goal of Searchmash is to test innovative user interfaces in order to continually improve the overall search experience for our users. The experimental search engine looks very different from Google's Web sites and lacks Google branding. In this way, Google believes the site will yield more objective feedback from users."

Comments

feedback on the feedback

[LiquidCoooled]

I just tried it and gave a search "NASA shuttle" (on topic...) and it gives a page displaying search results, image results and wikipedia results.
There is a small area asking for feedback:


Were these results useful to you?
Web Pages Yes / No
Images Yes / No
Wikipedia Yes / No


Well, The page results were as expected so Yes, as was wikipedia (even though it was closed to start with) and the results for images would be useful if I could see them (they were at the bottom of the page and not visible at first, so I clicked no).

How can I tell them that the images would be really good if they were somewhere else on the screen?
If they want feedback, they should let people give feedback.

Re:feedback on the feedback

[icepick72]

In Google API the 10-word limit exits. See here:
http://code.google.com/apis/soapsearch/reference.h tml

Parent could have been referring to that.

yes for wikipedia

[cucucu]

I used searchmash and voted for results for wikipedia. Some time ago I found the following firefox quick searches to be very useful:

• Search in wikipedia: http://www.google.com/search?q=%25s+site:en.wikipe dia.org
• Go to wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%25s
• Go to wiktionary: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%25s

Do ./ers have good wikipedia quick searches to share?

Re:yes for wikipedia

[thc69]

In both Firefox and Opera, you can add nearly any search as a quick search by right-clicking in the text box.

As for me, I have a local home.html in which I put every search I use, with the html stripped of everything I don't need, and the options I use pre-selected.

Nice with the wikipedia links

[weteko]

Very nice with the wikipedia links. I have been using googlepedia (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2517/) but with something like this I could skip that all together.

Re:Text browsers

[banky]

Or he could spell it "Links" as in the text-mode browser.

Horrible

[springbox]

This site requires JavaScript to be enabled to work. I don't usually complain about that, but every other search engine (including Google) that I've ever used works just fine without it enabled.

Re:Horrible

[TeknoHog]

My main problem with the JS there is that it breaks a pretty universal UI feature: scrolling the page with arrow keys. When the search field is visible, it takes focus no matter what, so you cannot scroll with arrows -- or even with PgUp/PgDn! You can try this neatly by scrolling to the very bottom; from there you can scroll up with the keyboard, but only until you see the search field. I came across a similar problem very recently on another site, and promptly complained.

Some JS effects are actually quite useful, like Slashdot's new discussion system.. Such ideas can add to existing functionality without breaking the old, which is nice.

I used to think scrollwheels on mice are useless gimmicks, since the arrow keys provide the same functionality. It seems the solution is to disable the oldskool way via software, so you can sell more mice. Or you can probably use the scrollbars on the side/bottom, if you prefer the extremely inconvenient way of life.

Googles feedback page!

[MrShaggy]

I found this out. It seems relatively hidden.

Googles Web Help Center There is a link at the bottom of the page, that will allow you to send them comments ala suggestion box style. I already suggested that being able to move the content around ala the google.com/ig site, would be nice, as well as a link or webform, that would let people truly feedback would be great.

Requires javascript. Thumbs down.

[MySpaceSpartacus]

It requires javascript so it gets a thumbsdown from me. I have NoScript installed so when I would search for something I got the home page over and over. No search results. No thanks.

I liked the more webpages feature

[charliebear]

Kind of cool that to get more results, it displays on the same page, and you keep scrolling down, instead of loading a new page.

Re:This site is a little messed up

[kicks-ass]

Argh! ars technica linked to it http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/4/ 24/3724 .. no wonder the high rank look for the "always look better " link in the last paragraph

Re:This site is a little messed up

[hotkey]

Look at the full-size picture: http://www.saitti.org/images/HD-DVD.jpg (WARNING: Very NSFW!) The red text explains the reason. Basically, ars technica linked the picture from this guy without permission, so he decided to have some fun.

Reorder search results around?

[Nixusg]

Last time i was there you could reorder the search results to suit you... http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/tcmagazine/~3/38789 079/comments.php...look like that has been removed. Guess it didn't make it past the user responses.

Re:What is really needed...

[mjbkinx]

... is a boolean search engine, "à la" altavista. I _loved_ that one.

You can do boolean searches with Google/SearchMash. By default everything is AND, but you can use OR (all caps) if you like.
Just because typing in words into the search field is so intuitive doesn't mean there isn't useful information in Google's help, you know...

Cool tip that eliminates clicking for "next page"

[mTor]

I discovered this by an accident... when you scroll to the end of the page, hit space bar and the next page of results will automatically open. Cool!

Re:GET query doesn't work

[JamesGecko]

That's because the more easy-to-use "http://www.searchmash.com/search/foo" works instead. I just changed keyword.URL in Firefox's about:config to http://www.searchmash.com/search/

Now, I can just type the search in the address bar, no prefixes, and it works great.