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Site Search Onebox  (View post)

/pd [PersonRank 10]

Wednesday, March 5, 2008
16 years ago9,538 views

I am seeing this in here..site search directly ..

it just one step closer for the users ..but on the condition that the 1st result is the right one!!

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

So you can see it in Canada, without any proxy?

Heliton [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

I'm in Brazil, and I see the search box. No proxy involved. Cheers

/pd [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

No proxy involved on my part

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

(thanks, I added an update!)

Mary Nicole Hicks [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

From NZ, searching for Gimp and was this just now.

http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=GIMP&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Maybe it has to do with Google's many data centers. Some already have the new features, others don't.

This shows the search box:
http://209.85.129.104/search?hl=en&q=youtube&btnG=Google+Search

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

(Added another update.) That data center works for me, but interestingly enough it doesn't show a search box for all sites which have sitelinks. I can see it on e.g. [youtube] but not [google blogoscoped]:

http://209.85.129.104/search?hl=en&q=google+blogoscoped&btnG=Search

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Yes, it shows up for very few sites and this is not related to the data center you access.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Yeah, that's what I thought too (with "it" above I meant to refer to the sitesearch feature, not the specific data center).

Ramibotros [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Can anybody think of a scenario where this would be actually useful?

Matt Cutts [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Of course, Ramibotros. If you do a search like [imdb] it's often because you're looking for a specific movie page. So a search box helps you find and get to that page much faster.

beussery [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

ahhhhh... so safe to say this feature is useful based on the fact that users searching for imbd often intend to preform a search and not simply to visit the site?

Jérôme Flipo [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]beussery Matt Cutts said "often"; and if you want to visit imdb, it's faster to use Ctrl+L and tape imdb!

I don't understand why when I use the embedded search box of Amazon, all results begin with "Amazon.com" (which is very annoying and unreadable) while imdb, wikipedia and many other provide clear results... They really should improve that.

/pd [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I agree with Matt, its easier /faser for users to get to their target .. one step decrease in the UX

but, this is still conditional as mentioned above [my first comment]

beussery [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #


I see the redundant URLs could be an issue for users. At the same time I see this a being very useful on mobile devices and either way think the "intent" aspect is interesting. Lots of folks search for a site and go to the site only to "site search" for the product they seek. This takes out one step. It's also good for users searching for a site with the intent to search for a product only to find the site has no "site search". Just my two cents!

Jérôme Flipo [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

It will make the Google search in "site:wikipedia.org" more popular, and it's good point since the search engine of Wikipedia sucks.

David Mulder [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I had to add the hl=en parameter as always before it showed up.

Ben Allen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I think the search bar under Wikipedia home is distracting.

Hanan Cohen [PersonRank 7]

16 years ago #

Also shown in Israel throught google.com but not in google.co.il

At first, I thought that Google favoured the Arsenal site because it has a Google site search but then I saw that the Arsenal has a (M$FT) Live search box.

Interesting.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]Ben:
Wikipedia's search is terrible, so it's much better to use Google. The search box could be added for all search results in an expandable plus box because it's useful, but not all the time.

Rob Hammond [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

I can see it in google.co.uk searching for [secondlife]

Dariusz Siedlecki [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

The search box is completly random. Sometimes it shows, sometimes not. I refreshed a search for "Arsenal FC" a couple of times, and got sometime around 50/50 on it.

Justin [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Clicking on the links given by Ionut doesn't take me to the search result that has the search box. It just has More results from YouTube.com link only.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Added another update, I'm now also not seeing it anymore on the datacenter Ionut pointed to.

As for the usefulness it seems to be very useful, in particular for the 99% (??) of the people who never used the site operator before. (Even *if* Wikipedia had a greatly working search, I would prefer this as I already know Google, know Google syntax, Google results formatting, know the kind of queries that work with Google etc.)

Though, I wonder if those same non power searchers will be confused by the site operator when it eventually does pop up in the query box once you used the site search... it could be replaced by a checkbox or somethin (( ) search all the web (*) search wikipedia.org). Not saying that that is better, as it wouldn't educate people and the site search box also doesn't pop up always, so people wouldn't know how to do it when the box won't pop up. Perhaps right now is a good middle ground.

In the case of Google Health results I think it looks more confusing though. Search Google for "headache", click on Symptoms, and the search box will say "headache more:condition_symptoms". Can you imagine most people would remember the full "more:condition_symptoms", "more:condition_treatment", "more:for_patients" syntax? Especially when they have a headache (or are otherwise in a hurry for health advice)!

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

It's weird. If you refresh the page a couple of times, the search box appears again.

Ionut Alex. Chitu [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

The more: operator doesn't even work if you don't add a parameter for context to the URL, so you shouldn't use it.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Ah, I can reproduce that refreshing thing here. Perhaps Google wants to collect usage stats in direct comparison with/ without that box?

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Update: Now I saw such a sitesearch box pop up in the top result for the query [associated press]. However, the ap.org result had no sitelinks, so it seems the sitesearch is not directly connected to sitelinks (though it perhaps coincides with sitelinks more often).

http://blogoscoped.com/files/associated-press-sitesearch-large.png

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Official post:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/search-within-site-tale-of.html

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

From above:

<<This feature will now occur when we detect a high probability that a user wants more refined search results within a specific site. Like the rest of our snippets, the sites that display the site search box are chosen algorithmically based on metrics that measure how useful the search box is to users.>>

/pd [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

"the sites that display the site search box are chosen algorithmically based on metrics that measure how useful the search box is to users"

Does this mean ??

a) That the Site(e.g. AP.og) has a high rank order on the metrics for site searches

or ;

b) that a user (me) does more usage of using [<term> Site : Yyz.com]

Bernard LCW [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

[Moved from "Search Box on Google results page" – Tony]

I just noticed this new feature from Google: a search box in the result page.

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/1746/20080313screenshot18274aj4.png

Travis Harris [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[Moved from "Sub Search Box" – Tony]

if you go to the following URL
http://www.google.com/search?q=postgresql

you will notice that postgresql.org has it's own search box which will take whatever you search for and append "site:postgresql.org" to the query.

How do I get my site when it is returned to have a searchbox like that?

mbegin [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[Moved from "Sub Search Box" – Tony]

The site search box is added automatically...

"the sites that display the site search box are chosen algorithmically based on metrics that measure how useful the search box is to users"

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/search-within-site-tale-of.html

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-03-05-n89.html

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