Google Rolls Out Universal Search, New Unified Navigation Bar

News Type: Event — Wed May 16, 2007 9:52 PM EDT

technology, google, web, search, ui, universal-search

A Google web search results page, showing the new navigation bar with an expanded "more" link, a new bar with links to other types of search results, and (IMO) a comical set of results.

The Google News home page, showing the same navigational bar as on the web search results page. For me, this site has only been showing the navigational bar occasionally.

The Google Video home page, showing the same navigational bar as above with one slight difference--Gmail is listed as "Mail." Of the sites with this general navigation bar, Google Video is the only site with this difference.

Gmail, showing the other major variation of the navigational bar. Calendar, Documents, Photos, and Groups show the same links. On Gmail, Calendar and Documents, the links open in a new window, whereas the links utilize the same window everywhere else.

Google announced a new "universal search" feature and began rolling out new user interface enhancements today. Universal search results and another enhancement, a unified navigation bar is being rolled out to new users in stages, starting in the United States.

Google has a history of deploying some features to users in stages, and as such I'm posting screenshots for those of you who aren't able to see some of the new changes yet.

Universal search will start to blend in search results from Google's other search services into its web search, ranking relevance on the same scale. This means that although maps, news, books, and other results have for a long time been displayed near the top of web search results pages as suggestions, they will now be ranked along with the web results and display in order of relevance with the web results.

Google started adding a navigation bar to the top of some of its pages last summer. The bar has seen many revisions, with links to different services being added and dropped, but this is the first revision to feature a new look and a "more" link with a more comprehensive list of Google services.

While universal search may be the most widely noticed new feature by casual users, the navigational bar has my vote as an "hard-core Google user" for the most useful feature. Generally, two different configurations of the navigation bar appear, depending on what type of page you are on. Search-like pages such as web, video, and news search display "Web, Images, Video, News, Maps, Gmail, and more" whereas application-like pages such as Gmail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and Google Calendar display "Mail, Calendar, Documents, Photos, Groups, Web, and more" (there are currently some discrepancies between pages, but this is generally what appears).

Overall, these enhancements will help to promote other Google services to casual users and allow users who already utilize many of Google's services to more easily navigate between them. When this is fully deployed, one will theoretically never have to type in an address or use a bookmark to visit another Google site once one is at any of the other sites.

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6.9

1.5

{"commentId":712964,"authorDomain":"elvo86"}

Elliot Vos

The most interesting part that I've found about how they're rolling these new features out is that I originally only saw this in Camino. Camino didn't render the pages correctly at first (putting the Google logos in the center of the page instead of on the left and pushing that entire section of the page over), so I checked to see what it looked like in Firefox and Safari, but they didn't show the new interface! By the time I finished writing this, the pages had updated, however.

{"commentId":712964,"threadId":"104169","contentId":"723014","authorDomain":"elvo86"}

2 votes

#1 - Wed May 16, 2007 9:55 PM EDT

{"commentId":713099,"authorDomain":"thura"}

Thura

Getting a bit cluttered, but still clean enough. No complaints here.

{"commentId":713099,"threadId":"104169","contentId":"723014","authorDomain":"thura"}

1 vote

#2 - Wed May 16, 2007 11:38 PM EDT

{"commentId":714094,"authorDomain":"sheadunn"}

sheadunn

Awesome, I have been waiting for this feature for a long time!

{"commentId":714094,"threadId":"104169","contentId":"723014","authorDomain":"sheadunn"}

1 vote

#3 - Thu May 17, 2007 11:26 AM EDT

{"commentId":714117,"authorDomain":"elvo86"}

Elliot Vos

Likewise. The integration just makes so much sense!

{"commentId":714117,"threadId":"104169","contentId":"723014","authorDomain":"elvo86"}

#3.1 - Thu May 17, 2007 11:33 AM EDT

{"commentId":715748,"authorDomain":"mdipi"}

Michael D.

The new themes in iGoogle are also really great! I'm wondering if they will eventually carry out into the search results as well? Having a themed search page all the time could be cool - and really make Google feel like "your" home.

I could see them adding things like which order to display things on the main search page as well. For instance the ability to always show links before pictures - or something of the sort. Much like you can drag and drop the modules here on the Newsvine homepage.

{"commentId":715748,"threadId":"104169","contentId":"723014","authorDomain":"mdipi"}

2 votes

#4 - Thu May 17, 2007 11:25 PM EDT

{"commentId":716111,"authorDomain":"elvo86"}

Elliot Vos

Hmmm... that would be interesting...

But actually they're mixing the results in together, so images won't be shown before links, they'll be shown in the midst of links, ordered by relevance just like the links.

{"commentId":716111,"threadId":"104169","contentId":"723014","authorDomain":"elvo86"}

1 vote

#4.1 - Fri May 18, 2007 6:38 AM EDT

{"commentId":717100,"authorDomain":"mdipi"}

Michael D.

I see - I haven't had a search that allows me to experience that yet.

A search for "George Bush" shows a picture w/ news articles in the very top, then web pages, related searches, and then news archives. That's what lead me to believe that it wouldn't be ordered in order of relevance.

{"commentId":717100,"threadId":"104169","contentId":"723014","authorDomain":"mdipi"}

2 votes

#4.2 - Fri May 18, 2007 1:38 PM EDT

{"commentId":717245,"authorDomain":"elvo86"}

Elliot Vos

Ah, that's still the old functionality. They'll be rolling this out in stages.

{"commentId":717245,"threadId":"104169","contentId":"723014","authorDomain":"elvo86"}

2 votes

#4.3 - Fri May 18, 2007 2:31 PM EDT

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Google Going With 'Unified Search' -- InformationWeek	informationweek.com	Thu May 17	0
Google Universal Search, A Massive Effort	informationweek.com	Thu May 17	0
Google's Latest "More" Menu Prototype	blog.outer-court.com	Fri May 18	1

ELLIOT VOS

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Google Rolls Out Universal Search, New Unified Navigation Bar

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