Wednesday, October 4, 2006

The Purpose of Google’s SearchMash

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch received answers from Google as to why they’ve created SearchMash.com. From Danny’s post:

• “SearchMash is an experimental search site operated by Google. The goal of SearchMash is to test innovative user interfaces in order to continually improve the overall search experience for our users.”
• “The site does not include Google branding to help us gather more objective data about user response to new interfaces.”

As usual, there’s no guarantee any design prototypes will end up in Google’s live search for everyone, and Google also adds the site may be unavailable at times due to traffic limitations.

How are people going to end up on SearchMash.com though? Danny takes a guess and speculates Google might divert people to the site through means such as when someone uses an AdSense for Search box on a content site; he also says that possibly, you won’t be able to spot new features by going directly to SearchMash.com, as Google can filter out those users.

Clearly some of the pieces are coming together, though Google doesn’t seem to share the whole picture. But what about the “search tool that will enable users to design and build their own flavor of Google search, scanning just the sites they’re interested in” which Marissa Mayer talked about? Maybe after all that hasn’t got anything to do with SearchMash, but more with Google’s IndexBench.

[Thanks Mark RW.!]

The Purpose of Google’s S ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (2)

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