Google Brings Back the "Search Nearby" Feature in Maps

The new Google Maps is looking great, but many of us sorely missed the superb and simple "search nearby" function that unexpectedly vanished. Now, it's finally back.

Although it was little more than a text link at the bottom of your search results, the "search nearby" function in Google Maps was hugely popular for drilling down into exciting locational discoveries. When the revamped Google Maps went live, there was a quiet outcry when "search nearby" was found missing. But casual cartographers around the world are throwing their hats in the air as the function has just been returned to the all-new Google Maps experience.

Read the full post @ Lifehacker.com.

Bring back some lost searches

Google Search used to have an option that allowed you to restrict results to forum pages. You'll often find helpful discussions and it's nice to be able to exclude blogs, news sites, videos, shopping sites when searching for a software bug or other tech-related issues.

Fortunately, you can still restrict results to discussions: just add &tbm=dsc to a Google Search URL.

This also works for:

• recipe search: add &tbm=rcp
• local search: add &tbm=plcs
• blog search: add &tbm=blg
• patent search: add &tbm=pts 

Read the full post @ GoogleSystem.blogspot.com.

Become a Google Usability Tester

User research studies help us improve Google products by allowing us to get feedback directly from our users (that's you!)

During a study we may present you with and gather your feedback on an existing product, a new feature, or even prototypes. We may also interview you about particular daily habits or ask you to keep a log of certain activity types over a given period of time. Study sessions can happen at a Google office, in your home or business, or online through your computer or mobile device. Afterwards, you'll receive a token of our appreciation for your cooperation. Sharing your experiences with us helps inform our product planning and moves us closer to our goal of building something you'll love.

You don't have to be a Google product user or a tech aficionado to sign up

We value input from people that are unfamiliar with our products or the latest web technology, as well as those who are deeply engaged with them. If you've used the Internet in any way before, we want to hear from you!

Getting invited

When you sign up to participate in user studies, we'll use the information you provide to help us search for suitable participants for user studies. We (or an outside agency working on our behalf in accordance with our privacy policy) will only contact you if we want to invite you to participate in a study or need to clarify information that informs such invitations.

Read all the details & sign up @ Google.com/usability.

Some changes to the results page

We've increased the size of result titles, removed the underlines, and evened out all the line heights. This improves readability and creates an overall cleaner look. We've also brought over our new ad labels from mobile, making the multi-device experience more consistent.

Read the full post on Google+.

New format for Google Alert e-mails

Google has recently re-formatted the display of results in Google Alert e-mails. Specifically, notice the addition of social network sharing buttons. So, please consider this an update of figure 11.3.

Google Gives More Prominence to First Playable Music Video Search Result

Searching for a music video on Google? Maybe "Locked Out of Heaven" by Bruno Mars or "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk? Now Google is using the space above its organic search results to give more prominence to the top playable music video result.

Say you search for [daft punk get lucky], you'll see this:

Though it looks like you should be able to play it straight from the search results, clicking on the giant thumbnail won't actually play the video. Rather, clicking takes you to YouTube to view the video. Below the video, Google also links to searches for the artist and the album on which the song you've searched for appears.

While it doesn't have to be an "official" music video, Google seems to be pulling these videos from official artist channels the majority of the time, though it isn't perfect.

Read the full post @ Search Engine Watch.

11 Most Important Google Search Algorithm Updates/Changes in 2013

Generally this sort of thing has greater implications to the SEO crowd, but any change to the algorithm will have an impact on the type of search results you'll receive.

Source: e2msolutions.com