Google Squared, Rich Snippets, Search Options; Google’s new search tools are here to help you

According to Marisa Mayer, VP of Google’s search tools, users are becoming more and more sophisticated at search and coming to Google for statistics regarding issues such as the level of carbon dioxide emissions or the number of wildfires in different regions of the country.

As an attempt to satisfy all tastes Google has come up with a trio of services all targeted to help users ’slice and dice’ their Google search results.

Search Options is feature number one. Basically, it’s a tool that enables users to manipulate information and restrict search results by a certain criteria, ie: time, genre or reviews. One of the tools within the Search Options is the Wonder Wheel which provides users with related query suggestions and see result updates on real-time.

My search query was for ‘glasses’ and Google suggested I could also look into Dior glasses, bar glasses or RayBan glasses, which I clicked on for more refined results.

Google Squared is feature number two and one which is set to launch later this month under Labs. This tool organizes your results into a sort of spreadsheet that can be edited and saved as you would an Excel file.

The example as dicussed by Matt Cutts was for ’small dogs’. Google results displayed the types of breeds that corresponded to small dogs which stretched down the page as seen on image. Any missing data can be added into different rows as well as new columns  in order to retrieve corroborating facts on a given term.

Rich Media Snippets is the third feature presented by Google. Want to get some extra information on your search results? Rich Snippets are said to be a favorite for webmasters since it allows them to add a piece of code to their HTML, which will in theory program Google to reveal more information than the singular search result you’re used to.

These little pieces of text will extract more information and give you a richer view of the preview text. For instance, if you’re looking to try a new restaurant, the rich snippet will include a review of that restaurant or the restaurant’s price range which can both help you choose the right place. Same goes for people.  If you’re looking for someone but the results show more than one person with the same name, snippets will extract the location and profession of a particular person so you can tell if it’s the person you’re looking for.

Clearly, all three features give users a way to refine results at a much rapper pace and manipulate information to their needs. What has been your experience so far? Tell us your story!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 6:12 pm and is filed under Search Engine Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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