Gmail in Google Search Results – 9th August 2012 The trial will be available as an opt-in service from Thursday for 1 million Gmailers who sign up. Gmail results in SERPs will be shown to the right hand side although in some cases at the top of the search page. Aside from the obvious fact that Gmail has it's own search option, this is yet another attempt for Google to plug more and more of it's products into 'Universal Search', with an emphasis on personalisation (e.g. Google+ earlier this year). The aim, stated by Google, is part of their steps to create a 'Star Trek' like computer that can provide any and all information users are searching for. Therefore, this trial and other future integration projects would be most beneficial to users who have accounts with all Google products. This trial will also, no doubt, lead privacy campaigns to once again proclaim their outrage at the company. Let us know you thoughts by tweeting #SL54 @SearchLately. – Jasdeep Mondae More details: www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/aug/09/google-trial-gmail-searchfunction
Google Knowledge Graph Improvements Go Global - 8th August 2012 Google announced this week that the Knowledge Graph extension within Google search pages will now be available worldwide to all English language versions of Google.
In another update that Google have made this week, a new carousel feature has been added to the search engine results page that will show a selection of images for user search queries. If these have not appeared
already then expect to them soon. It will be interesting to see in the coming weeks what impact this highly anticipated feature brings to paid search activity, and whether this will help deliver a higher quality of clicks. This additional information available to users when searching on Google may distract users away from paid search ads and cause click through rates to decline. On the other hand it may actually mean that users that do click will have a higher propensity to convert as they are better informed about the search query they have entered. Let us know you thoughts by tweeting #SL54 @SearchLately. – Kevin Ting More details: www.seroundtable.com/google-knowledge-graph-expanded-15543.html www.zdnet.com/google-rolling-out-knowledge-graph-to-english-speakersworldwide-7000002349/
Trial for Gmail Results in your Google Search – 8th August 2012 On 8th August Google released a ‘field trial’ for Gmail results in Google Searches for those who chose to enrol. The email result shows up in the right hand corner of the screen with results from your personal Gmail account and to ensure privacy the user has to click through to see the contents of the emails. Search Engine Land reported this update and show in depth screen shots of a user experience to explain how it works and how it can be useful, as well as the limitations of this feature. Incorporating personal email results in to search at first might seem rather arbitrary and just another way of Google monopolising the search landscape: Why would you not just search your emails instead? This was my thought process. However with a little more analysis on how these imbedded results might be useful, as with most Google products, it is likely that this could be a welcome addition. When you do search your email it is normally to retrieve specific information that you have in mind and that you know is contained somewhere amongst 100s of words of correspondence, but having the emails imbedded in search may work to remind you of information that you might have otherwise have forgotten, for example a restaurant recommendation.
Is it necessary to incorporate everything in to your search results? We have seen reviews from friends and family with Google+ Local and now email, but is this bespoke experience what users want -when you search are you not looking for information outside of your own personal life? Let us know you thoughts by tweeting #SL54 @SearchLately. -
Hannah Struve
More Details searchengineland.com/up-close-the-gmail-in-google-search-results-fieldtrial-130035