Google has pushed out several new search features that reflect both innovation and, in at least one case, represents a response to rival Bing.
The news is key for industry watchers, search marketers and users of the world's most popular search engine, which is working to not just safeguard its massive hold on users and ad dollars by enhancing its appeal, but to stave off competition from players like Microsoft's Bing.
Several new Google improvements aim to make it easier for users to find what they seem to be seeking. That's the case with an enhancement to Google Suggest, the feature that gives a best guess for a search term so that a query can be entered at a click without typing in the full word or phrase.
For example, as you enter the letters, B, A, R, A... in the search box, a drop-down menu suggests a list of popular related search terms starting with "Barack Obama". Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), Bing and other search engines have a similar feature.
Now with the latest enhancement, Google Suggest adds a "did you mean" feature designed to offer a meaningful suggestion -- within the search box -- to cover misspellings in instances when Suggest wouldn't typically offer any completions.
That's a feature that could make it easier for searchers to find products and services on Google that they might not necessarily know how to spell -- a potential boon for marketers.
In practice, however, users might not need the feature very often because Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) already is pretty good at guessing users' intention despite misspelled queries. In a brief test, it was pretty hard to get the "did you mean" drop-down box to appear at all. For example, Google readily suggested "Steve Jobs" when the term "Stve jbs" was entered and it also offered "Boston Celtics" for the entry "Bstn clltcs."
Marissa Meyer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, said in a blog post that the "did you mean" feature is currently only available at the Google.com search page in English, but the company is looking to roll it out internationally "in the near future."
Android and iPhone Apps, Bing-like Backgrounds
Developers looking to market their mobile apps may have a slightly easier time of it as well, thanks to another recent enhancement to Google.
For end users, finding the right application on a mobile device can often be daunting now that there are over 200,000 applications for the iPhone and tens of thousands available for Android devices. Now, Google said it's offering more information to app search results to make effective discovery easier.
Mayer said Google's now offering a "special result" at the top of a mobile search that shows basic information about the app, whether it's a travel tool, budgeting, game or other application. The Google result will include title, price and publisher and a link that takes the user directly to the Android Market or iPhone App Store, depending on the device a searcher is using.
When Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) overhauled its search strategy and launched Bing a year ago, it brought a few new wrinkles to the search page. One of those was break from the standard, barebones search page popularized by Google where there are very elements on the page besides the search box and logo.
A third enhancement is designed to broaden Google's already-massive appeal by co-opting a feature found on a rival. In addition to presenting an industry-standard search box, Bing introduced a series of dramatic background images that change daily on its search page.
Google is keeping its Spartan design, but is now giving users the option to add their own choice of colorful backgrounds. The main Google search page now includes a "change background image" link on the lower left-side of the page that lets users choose from a public gallery of images or add an image of their own.
David Needle is the West Coast bureau chief at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.
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