Google launches ‘Universal Search’
In their continuing bid for world domination Google have just released the latest version of their search engine architecture. The results from the ‘Universal search’ will blend content from Images, Maps, Books, Video, and News.
The Official Google Blog cites:
“With universal search, we’re attempting to break down the walls that traditionally separated our various search properties and integrate the vast amounts of information available into one simple set of search results”
Also making an appearance is the new navigation bar at the top of all Google pages making it easier to access other Google services such as Gmail.
I’ve just been having a play with this - and on the whole it works really nicely. The main search results window still seems to be populated mainly by websites, but on searches for more popular subjects the odd image and video make it into the ‘blend’. However, if I you are searching specifically for an image you need to click on ‘images’ in the new navigation bar. The new contextual navigation links that appear above the main search window are also quite useful for helping to narrow down the search.
All in all I think the ‘blend’ of results in the main window could be a bit better, particularly for images, but as the official Google blog states:
“…these are just the beginning steps toward the universal search vision. Stay tuned!”