Google's Festive Decorations

Google shows a lot of festive doodles, Easter Eggs and special decoration. Here are some of them:

- The Thanksgiving doodle is actually a video

Here's the video:

"Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year."

- Mr. Jingles is hungry

Here's the animation:

- Hanukkah search results

Here's the mobile Safari version:

... and the mobile Chrome version:

"Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights and Feast of Dedication, is an eight-day Jewish holiday."

- Festivus search results include the aluminum Festivus pole

"Festivus, a well-celebrated parody, has become a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 which serves as an alternative to participating in the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas and holiday season. Originally a family tradition of a scriptwriter working on the American sitcom Seinfeld, the holiday entered popular culture after it was made the focus of a 1997 episode of the program."

As Google says, "it's all about Thanksgivukkah in 2013. This overlap of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah won't happen again for another 70,000+ years, making it a once-in-a-lifetime event".

Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Holidays!

{ Thanks, Mukil, Emanuele, Camilo and Florian. }

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Google Health Cards

When you search for [causes of multiple sclerosis], [causes of hiccups], [symptoms of the flu], [how to treat iron deficiency] and other similar health-related queries, Google shows snippets from authoritative sites like WebMD and MayoClinic. Sometimes Google also shows instant answers, but they're not always accurate.

{ Thanks, Sunite. }

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Google Asks Users to Disable Ad Blocking for Its Sites

It looks like Google started to show warnings if you use AdBlock or AdBlock Plus, the most popular ad blockers (they have more than 50 million users). A reader from Brazil noticed this message: "Oh no, it seems like you are blocking Google's ads. These ads pay for Google products that people use every day. It's easy to deactivate ad blocking just for Google. And it won't change your ad blocking settings or other settings".

The message links to a filter that includes a long list of exceptions like "@@||www.google.com^$document" and "@@||maps.google.com^$document".

Here's a screenshot of the Google whitelist filter (it actually includes more domains):

This is pretty weird, considering that the ads were not blocked, as you can see in the screenshot. Google ads are not blocked by default in AdBlock Plus, since they're considered "acceptable ads". Some sites have speculated that Google paid AdBlock Plus to whitelist its ads, but that's not very clear.

Google Discovery also reported about this back in May, so it looks like the experiment is limited to Google Brazil, at least for now.

{ Thanks, Marcos Alexandre. }

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Background Color Experiment in Google Mobile Search

Google experiments with a slightly different mobile search interface that has a different background color to emphasize the cards. "In this experiment, they've made the background darker in colour to add more contrast and make the cards stand out more," says Lee Jarratt, who noticed the new interface.

Here's the regular interface:

{ Thanks, Lee. }

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A Google Parameter Brings Back the Black Bar

If you're missing Google's black navigation bar, there's a parameter that brings it back. If you add "?noj=1" or "?noj=0" to a Google search URL, you'll temporarily replace the app launcher with the black bar. Here's the "black bar" version of the Google homepage: http://www.google.com/?noj=1.

This doesn't change the interface permanently and it's not clear for how long it will work. The parameter also disables Google Instant and replaces it with the old Google Suggest.

{ Thanks, Rubén. }

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Google Search App, the Android KitKat Launcher

Ron Amadeo from Ars Technica noticed last week that Google's KitKat launcher is actually an extension of the Google Search app. "While developing KitKat, Google made a very interesting decision: rather than graft a few new search UI pieces onto the home screen, Google threw the existing home app in the trash and turned all home screen functionality over to the Google Search app."

It turns out that the launcher is powered by the Google Search app and it doesn't work if you disable the app. This is not unexpected: two of the standard features of the Nexus home screen are added by the Google Search app: the Google search bar and the swipe up gesture for Google Now. KitKat brings support for the "OK Google" hotword, so you can trigger Google Voice Search without pressing a button, and adds a new gesture for Google Now: swipe right.

I installed the updated Google Search app and the launcher on an old Galaxy S2 using the instructions from Phandroid.com. I must say that the experience is completely different from Jelly Bean: the app launcher no longer includes widgets and it looks more crowded, the entire launcher can be managed from the Google Search app.

The full-screen Now widget can only be removed if you disable Google Now in the settings or if you install a different launcher.

You can no longer disable and customize cards from the settings. Google opted for a simplified customization feature:

You can now add as many shortcuts and widgets as you want because the number of screens is unlimited. The screens are added and removed dynamically, just like in iOS. You add a new one by dropping a shortcut or a widget and you remove it by deleting all the shortcuts and widgets or dragging them to other screens.

The home screen includes a search box, a Voice Search button, hotword support for Voice Search and a Google Now screen. These are the main features of the Google Search app, so you'll use it without opening it. Removing friction and making the experience more seamless will encourage more people to use Google Now.

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How to Disable Google Secure Search

Speaking of iGoogle redirects, there's an easy way to use the non-HTTPS version of Google Search: just go to http://www.google.com/webhp?nord=1 or add "?nord=1" to a Google search URL after "www.google.com/", while replacing "https" with "http". It's obvious that "nord" comes from "no redirect" and the nice thing is that this parameter prevents all redirects, including the one that sends you to the local Google domain if you're not in the US.

Examples:
* from https://www.google.com/#q=test to http://www.google.com/?nord=1#q=test
* from https://www.google.com/search?q=test to http://www.google.com/search?q=test&nord=1

Why would you switch from the encrypted version of Google to the non-encrypted version? I can find a few reasons: maybe you want to use the highlighting feature of the Google Cache, maybe you want to send your query in Google referrals or you want to load search results pages a little bit faster.

"Google quietly made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity — except for clicks on ads. Google says this has been done to provide 'extra protection' for searchers, and the company may be aiming to block NSA spying activity," informs Search Engine Land.

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Google Tests Image Ads for Top Search Results

Back in 2010, Google launched a feature that allowed local businesses to add yellow markers to the map and promote their websites. Tags were actually ads that were placed inside local search results. It was a weird way to mix organic search results with ads and this feature was discontinued in 2011.

Now Google tests a similar feature for web search results. Instead of adding links and markers, advertisers can add huge banners above their search listings, but only for navigational searches. "The banners allow brands to take over the ad space on branded search queries and essentially present a branded search results experience," reports Search Engine Land. "The team at Synrgy has learned from a source at Google that the brand image experiment is live with about 30 advertisers, including Crate & Barrel and Virgin America. The test is showing for less than 5 percent of search queries," mentions Barry Schwartz. Basically, instead of displaying ads for competitors, Google shows a huge banner for the top search result.

"We're currently running a very limited, US-only test, in which advertisers can include an image as part of the search ads that show in response to certain branded queries. Advertisers have long been able to add informative visual elements to their search ads, with features like Media Ads, Product Listing Ads and Image Extensions," explained Google.

Well, that's not exactly true. The images are added to the search results, not to the search ads. Even though the top search result and the corresponding sitelinks are grouped with the image ad and the entire section is labeled "sponsored", this is actually the top search result.

The truth is that Google has continually added features from the organic search results to the search ads and Google has also started to mix search results with ads. For example, Google Shopping results are now ads, since companies need to pay to be included in the list of results. Booking links from flights search and hotel search are sponsored links.

For some searches, Google shows so many ads that you have to scroll to find some actual search results. Here's a screenshot of a Google search page for [tablet]: I highlighted the only organic result you can see without scrolling down. The Chrome window was resized to 1063x890, so there's enough vertical space. Most laptops sold today have lower resolutions: most likely, 1366x768.

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More Google Experiments That Hide Results URLs

There are at least two other versions of the Google experiment that removes search results URLs. The first alternate version places site names or domain names above the page title. For some results Google shows the site name, for other results Google displays the hostname.

The second alternate version shows both the site name and the hostname.

Which one do you like?

(As a side note, if you want to learn more about URLs, check this article written by Matt Cutts.)

{ Thanks, Rubén. }

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Google Shows 3D Models for Chemical Compounds

If you search Google for a chemical compound like carbon dioxide, sulfuric acid, glucose, ethylene glycol, ethyl acetate, you'll notice that the Knowledge Graph box includes an image with the "3D" icon. Click the first thumbnail and you'll get an animated 3D model of the compound.

Google uses the player from the Google Shopping 360° Product Images feature. Here's a direct link to the player.

This is a much more complex compound:

{ Thanks, James Sacuan. }

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A New Google Experiment Hides Search Results URLs

There's a war against URLs. Browsers start to hide them from the address bar: some remove "http" from the URL (Chrome, Firefox), Opera removes parameters, Safari for iOS only shows the domain name, Chrome and Safari show queries instead of Google's search URLs. All in the name of simplifying the interface.

A new Google search experiment replaces search results URLs with site names or domain names, depending on their popularity. Google tested a similar feature in 2011.

Most people don't understand URLs and find them too complicated. That's why many of them use search engines instead of typing URLs in the address bar, even for sites they visit frequently.

Still, web addresses are helpful because they provide useful information and they can be easily shared. If you only display "New York Times" instead of any New York Times URL, it's not obvious if you're linking to the homepage, to a section of the site, to a NYTimes blog or a blog post. URLs sometimes include useful information like the date when an article was published, the topic of the article or categories for shopping sites.

Here's an examples which shows that hiding URLs makes it difficult to distinguish between search results:

And here's the regular interface:

Google already shows incomplete URLs for search results, only displays site names for news results and replaces some URL elements with linked breadcrumbs.

{ Thanks, Rubén. }

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Google Plays Movie Trailers Inline

Google is yet to update the movie showtimes interface, but there's a
new feature that's worth mentioning. If you click "trailer" in the movie showtimes OneBox, Google plays the trailer inline, without opening a new page. (Update: apparently, this feature is not new, it was added last year.)

Here's an example for [gravity ny]:

Google also shows more information about the movie below the YouTube player: the cast, the director and a short summary. All the trailers are unlisted videos uploaded to this YouTube channel.

Some other queries you can try: "movies" followed by the name of a city or simply "movies". For example: [movies london].

{ Thanks, Jérôme. }

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The New Google Gadgets

Do you think you will be missing iGoogle gadgets? Many similar gadgets are available in Google Search and you can trigger them with a simple search. Here are some examples:

- weather gadget: search for [weather] or [weather LOCATION_NAME]

- calculator gadget: search for [calculator], [calc] or enter an expression like [4*5-1/4]

- currency converter: search for [currency converter], [1 usd in eur] or other similar queries

- unit conversion: search for [unit conversion], [10 miles in km], [50 f in c] or other similar queries.

- mail gadget: search for [my mail] and you'll see the latest messages from your Gmail inbox (US-only). Other things to try: [my calendar], [my plans for tomorrow], [my packages], [my flights], [my reservations], [my hotels], [my places], [my photos], [my documents], [my spreadsheets].

- sport scores: search for [nfl], [nhl], [nba], [football scores], [premier league], [manchester united], [serena williams], [formula 1].

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