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Google's Test Search Engine

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the well-isn't-that-special dept.

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."

5 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. "google censorship" by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Try searching for "google censorship" and it shows:

    Web Pages - about 190,000

    And relevent wikipedia articles

    I guess it works.

  2. Leechy by ostehaps · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nice. Just unfortunate that the results page looks uncannily like on of those domain leech default pages.

  3. Re:questionable reference built in by Digicrat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's a very good question.

    I also wonder if Google, aside from this, has donated anything to the wikipedia foundation? Google does claim they support open products, and Wikipedia has been at the top of most regular search results for a while. That doesn't give them any obligation of course, but would be a good-will-promoting-and-tax-reducing-act towards a non-profit that complements Google's offerings.

    Of course the real controversy here should be that does including Wikipedia as a special-case in search results lead to a greater trust in the accuracy of Wikipedia's content? And is that trust merited?

  4. Re:feedback on the feedback by Kijori · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can't see any feedback form, but as someone mentioned, they review what people search for, so you could just search for "images box is too far down".

  5. Re:Horrible by springbox · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't have a problem with sites that use JavaScript to do neat things, but it's dangerous to rely so heavily on it. I have used "web 2.0" sites that did an all JavaScript search on a single page.. After doing a few searches, I wanted to go back through my search history but pressing the back button took me to a completely different site (the one I was viewing before it.) Things can get like that if designers get too comfortable with their neat interface and can break a lot of things. Like, bookmarking the current page always takes you back to the site's "home page." The same thing happens with sites that present themselves only using Flash. Those are a pain to navigate and return to.