Become a Google power searcher

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

You may already be familiar with some shortcuts for Google Search, like using the search box as a calculator or finding local movie showtimes by typing [movies] and your zip code. But there are many more tips, tricks and tactics you can use to find exactly what you’re looking for, when you most need it.

Today, we’ve opened registration for Power Searching with Google, a free, online, community-based course showcasing these techniques and how you can use them to solve everyday problems. Our course is aimed at empowering you to find what you need faster, no matter how you currently use search. For example, did you know that you can search for and read pages written in languages you’ve never even studied? Identify the location of a picture your friend took during his vacation a few months ago? How about finally identifying that green-covered book about gardening that you’ve been trying to track down for years? You can learn all this and more over six 50-minute classes.

Lessons will be released daily starting on July 10, 2012, and you can take them according to your own schedule during a two-week window, alongside a worldwide community. The lessons include interactive activities to practice new skills, and many opportunities to connect with others using Google tools such as Google Groups, Moderator and Google+, including Hangouts on Air, where world-renowned search experts will answer your questions on how search works. Googlers will also be on hand during the course period to help and answer your questions in case you get stuck.

Power Searching with Google blends the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) learning format pioneered by Stanford and MIT with our social and communication tools to create what we hope is a true community learning experience.

Visit the course homepage to learn more. By the end of this course, you'll know several new techniques that will make you a Google Power Searcher and help you find out information about whatever you can imagine—from how to prepare for a new family pet to where moss grows on Stonehenge or how to grow katniss in your garden. Sign up now!

Posted by Terry Ednacot, Education Program Manager

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Find out what people are searching for with the updated Hot Searches list

People turn to search when they’re looking for answers and information, and sometimes what they want to know is on other people’s minds as well. You can learn a lot about what’s happening around the country or catch wind of a breaking news story by looking at what others are searching for.

With Hot Searches in Google Trends, you can see a list of the fastest rising search terms in the U.S. for a snapshot of what’s on the public’s collective mind. To create the Hot Searches list which is updated on an hourly basis, an algorithm analyzes millions of searches in the U.S. and determines which queries are being searched much more than usual.

Now, Hot Searches has gotten a refresh that makes the list of searches more visual, groups related rising search terms together and lets you see more information about those searches.

With rich images and links to related news articles, you can glance at the list and instantly get an idea of why these topics are particularly hot at the moment and click to find out more about them. Unlike the previous version of Hot Searches, which always provided 20 daily results, the new page introduces a filtering system that helps us make sure that the list includes only the truly hottest news stories of the day. Also, when a few of the fastest rising search terms refer to the same news story, such as [tony awards 2012] and [audra mcdonald], they’re now aggregated into one entry, which lists all the “Related searches” that go along with the main story. Lastly, the new list also provides an indication of how many searches have been conducted for each topic in the 24 hour period when it was trending.

To find out what the hottest searches are today, whether it’s a celebrity engagement, a sports-related shakeup or news about your favorite TV series, check out the updated Hot Searches list in Google Trends.

Posted by Nimrod Tamir, Google Trends Team

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

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Search quality highlights: 39 changes for May

May is often a big month for us in Search, and 2012 has been no exception. This month we had exciting announcements including the Knowledge Graph, better search for users in mainland China, and an updated Search App for iPhone. We also released new sports features, deeper detection of hacked pages, and much more.

Here’s the list for May:

• Deeper detection of hacked pages. [launch codename "GPGB", project codename "Page Quality"] For some time now Google has been detecting defaced content on hacked pages and presenting a notice on search results reading, “This site may be compromised.” In the past, this algorithm has focused exclusively on homepages, but now we’ve noticed hacking incidents are growing more common on deeper pages on particular sites, so we’re expanding to these deeper pages.
• Autocomplete predictions used as refinements. [launch codename "Alaska", project codename “Refinements”] When a user types a search she’ll see a number of predictions beneath the search box. After she hits “Enter”, the results page may also include related searches or "refinements". With this change, we’re beginning to include some especially useful predictions as “Related searches” on the results page.
• More predictions for Japanese users. [project codename "Autocomplete"] Our usability testing suggests that Japanese users prefer more autocomplete predictions than users in other locales. Because of this, we’ve expanded the number or predictions shown in Japan to as many as eight (when Instant is on).
• Improvements to autocomplete on Mobile. [launch codename "Lookahead", project codename "Mobile"] We made an improvement to make predictions work faster on mobile networks through more aggressive caching.
• Fewer arbitrary predictions. [launch codename "Axis5", project codename "Autocomplete"] This launch makes it less likely you’ll see low-quality predictions in autocomplete.
• Improved IME in autocomplete. [launch codename "ime9", project codename "Translation and Internationalization"] This change improves handling of input method editors (IMEs) in autocomplete, including support for caps lock and better handling of inputs based on user language.
• New segmenters for Asian languages. [launch codename "BeautifulMind"] Speech segmentation is about finding the boundaries between words or parts of words. We updated the segmenters for three asian languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, to better understand the meaning of text in these languages. We’ll continue to update and improve our algorithm for segmentation.
• Scoring and infrastructure improvements for Google Books pages in Universal Search. [launch codename “Utgo”, project codename “Indexing”] This launch transitions the billions of pages of scanned books to a unified serving and scoring infrastructure with web search. This is an efficiency, comprehensiveness and quality change that provides significant savings in CPU usage while improving the quality of search results.
• Unified Soccer feature. [project codename "Answers"] This change unifies the soccer search feature experience across leagues in Spain, England, Germany and Italy, providing scores and scheduling information right on the search result page.
• Improvements to NBA search feature. [project codename "Answers"] This launch makes it so we’ll more often return relevant NBA scores and information right at the top of your search results. Try searching for [nba playoffs] or [heat games].
• New Golf search feature. [project codename "Answers"] This change introduces a new search feature for the Professional Golf Association (PGA) and PGA Tour, including information about tour matches and golfers. Try searching for [tiger woods] or [2012 pga schedule].
• Improvements to ranking for news results. [project codename "News"] This change improves signals we use to rank news content in our main search results. In particular, this change helps you discover news content more quickly than before.
• Better application of inorganic backlinks signals. [launch codename "improv-fix", project codename "Page Quality"] We have algorithms in place designed to detect a variety of link schemes, a common spam technique. This change ensures we’re using those signals appropriately in the rest of our ranking.
• Improvements to Penguin. [launch codename "twref2", project codename "Page Quality"] This month we rolled out a couple minor tweaks to improve signals and refresh the data used by the penguin algorithm.
• Trigger alt title when HTML title is truncated. [launch codename "tomwaits", project codename "Snippets"] We have algorithms designed to present the best possible result titles. This change will show a more succinct title for results where the current title is so long that it gets truncated. We’ll only do this when the new, shorter title is just as accurate as the old one.
• Efficiency improvements in alternative title generation. [launch codename "TopOfTheRock", project codename "Snippets"] With this change we’ve improved the efficiency of title generation systems, leading to significant savings in cpu usage and a more focused set of titles actually shown in search results.
• Better demotion of boilerplate anchors in alternate title generation. [launch codename "otisredding", project codename "Snippets"] When presenting titles in search results, we want to avoid boilerplate copy that doesn’t describe the page accurately, such as “Go Back.” This change helps improve titles by avoiding these less useful bits of text.
• Internationalizing music rich snippets. [launch codename "the kids are disco dancing", project codename "Snippets"] Music rich snippets enable webmasters to mark up their pages so users can more easily discover pages in the search results where you can listen to or preview songs. The feature launched originally on google.com, but this month we enabled music rich snippets for the rest of the world.
• Music rich snippets on mobile. [project codename "Snippets"] With this change we’ve turned on music rich snippets for mobile devices, making it easier for users to find songs and albums when they’re on the go.
• Improvement to SafeSearch goes international. [launch codename "GentleWorld", project codename "SafeSearch"] This change internationalizes an algorithm designed to handle results on the borderline between adult and general content.
• Simplification of term-scoring algorithms. [launch codename "ROLL", project codename "Query Understanding"] This change simplifies some of our code at a minimal cost in quality. This is part of a larger effort to improve code readability.
• Fading results to white for Google Instant. [project codename "Google Instant"] We made a minor user experience improvement to Google Instant. With this change, we introduced a subtle fade animation when going from a page with results to a page without.
• Better detection of major new events. [project codename "Freshness"] This change helps ensure that Google can return fresh web results in realtime seconds after a major event occurs.
• Smoother ranking functions for freshness. [launch codename "flsp", project codename "Freshness"] This change replaces a number of thresholds used for identifying fresh documents with more continuous functions.
• Better detection of searches looking for fresh content. [launch codename "Pineapples", project codename "Freshness"] This change introduces a brand new classifier to help detect searches that are likely looking for fresh content.
• Freshness algorithm simplifications. [launch codename “febofu", project codename "Freshness"] This month we rolled out a simplification to our freshness algorithms, which will make it easier to understand bugs and tune signals.
• Updates to +Pages in right-hand panel. [project codename “Social Search”] We improved our signals for identifying relevant +Pages to show in the right-hand panel.
• Performance optimizations in our ranking algorithm. [launch codename "DropSmallCFeature"] This launch significantly improves the efficiency of our scoring infrastructure with minimal impact on the quality of our results.
• Simpler logic for serving results from diverse domains. [launch codename "hc1", project codename "Other Ranking Components"] We have algorithms to help return a diverse set of domains when relevant to the user query. This change simplifies the logic behind those algorithms.
• Precise location option on tablet. [project codename “Mobile”] For a while you've had the option to choose to get personalized search results relevant to your more precise location on mobile. This month we expanded that choice to tablet. You’ll see the link at the bottom of the homepage and a button above local search results.
• Improvements to local search on tablet. [project codename “Mobile”] Similar to the changes we released on mobile this month, we also improved local search on tablet as well. Now you can more easily expand a local result to see more details about the place. After tapping the reviews link in local results, you’ll find details such as a map, reviews, menu links, reservation links, open hours and more.
• Internationalization of “recent” search feature on mobile. [project codename "Mobile"] This month we expanded the “recent” search feature on mobile to new languages and regions.

Other changes we’ve blogged about since last time:

• The Knowledge Graph
• Better search in mainland China
• Notification of DNSChanger Malware
• Google+ Local
• Improvements to mobile local search
• Google Maps for mobile 6.7
• Updated Search App for iPhone

Posted by Scott Huffman, Engineering Director

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Introducing Flight Search for Canada

Cross posted on the ITA Software by Google blog
Lire ce blog en Français

As a child, I remember my father driving us to an open field adjacent to the runway at Montreal’s P.E. Trudeau airport. We sat on the hood of our car and watched the incoming aircraft as they landed before us. There was something special about people embarking on their new journey or returning from a great trip. With the introduction of Google’s Flight Search, people can quickly and easily find flights to embark on their own travel adventures, and starting today, you can use Flight Search to find and book flights from Canadian airports.

If you live in Canada and are thinking of hitting the Florida beaches to celebrate the end of another school year, heading to the Rockies for a getaway, or simply planning a business trip, Flight Search can help you quickly and easily find and book your flight.

We’re introducing google.ca/flights in both French and English, with prices for flights in Canadian dollars. Now you can find and book flights from Canadian airports, complete with all the benefits of our Flight Search product:

• Find flights quickly with results that load instantly in a format that’s easy to scan.
• Discover places to go on a map - see ticket prices for various destinations by surfing the map. You can filter by price, airline, or flight duration.
• Find the best time to go - click the calendar icon to see what dates will get you low prices.
• Compare your options by viewing the combination of price and flight duration in a graphical format.

Flight Search is also available in French

You can use Flight Search to book travel to over 500 international destinations. If your ideal destination or airline isn't yet available, don’t worry -- we're working hard on expanding our global coverage and adding more routes and airline partners in the future. Our goal is to make booking travel as fast and enjoyable as possible.

Posted by Gianni Marostica, Commercial Director, Travel

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Better search in mainland China

Over the past couple years, we’ve had a lot of feedback that Google Search from mainland China can be inconsistent and unreliable. It depends on the search query and browser, but users are regularly getting error messages like “This webpage is not available” or “The connection was reset.” And when that happens, people typically cannot use Google again for a minute or more. This video shows what’s happening:



We’ve taken a long, hard look at our systems and have not found any problems. However, after digging into user reports, we’ve noticed that these interruptions are closely correlated with searches for a particular subset of queries.

So starting today we’ll notify users in mainland China when they enter a keyword that may cause connection issues. By prompting people to revise their queries, we hope to reduce these disruptions and improve our user experience from mainland China. Of course, if users want to press ahead with their original queries they can carry on.

In order to figure out which keywords are causing problems, a team of engineers in the U.S. reviewed the 350,000 most popular search queries in China. In their research, they looked at multiple signals to identify the disruptive queries, and from there they identified specific terms at the root of the issue.

We’ve observed that many of the terms triggering error messages are simple everyday Chinese characters, which can have different meanings in different contexts. For example a search for the single character [江] (Jiāng, a common surname that also means “river”) causes a problem on its own, but 江 is also part of other common searches like [丽江] (Lijiang, the name of a city in Yunnan Province), [锦江之星] (the Jinjiang Star hotel chain), and [江苏移动] (Jiangsu Mobile, a mobile phone service). Likewise, searching for [周] (Zhōu, another common surname that also means “week”) triggers an error message, so including this character in other searches—like [周杰伦] (Jay Chou, the Taiwanese pop star), [周星驰] (Stephen Chow, a popular comedian from Hong Kong), or any publication that includes the word “week”—would also be problematic.

Now, when a user types in a common term like [长江] (Yangtze River) from China, Google highlights the problem term [江] as they type, and when they press “enter” a drop-down menu appears beneath the search box:

Notices will appear matching the user’s language settings.

To learn more, users can click on the “interruption” link, which takes them to this help center article. They can continue with their original query (which will likely lead to an error message), or click “Edit search terms,” which will remove the highlighted characters and prompt users to try other search terms:

In order to avoid connection problems, users can refine their searches without the problem keywords. For example, instead of searching for [长江], they could search for [changjiang]—which also means Yangtze River, but is written using pinyin, the system used to transliterate Chinese characters into Latin script. This won’t cause a timeout, but will still generate search results related to the Yangtze River.

We’ve said before that we want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services. Our hope is that these written notifications will help improve the search experience in mainland China. If you’re outside China and are curious to see what the notifications look like, you can visit this link to try it out.

Posted by Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Knowledge

Note: To read this blog post in Chinese, see this PDF.

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Find places faster with quick access to local info on the go

I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a picky eater. If I'm choosing a restaurant, I want to know that it has good reviews, that they'll have food items I like, that it's not too expensive, and all that. With the new changes to the local listings in search on mobile devices, now I'll be able to see more details about places quickly and make decisions more easily -- whether about restaurants or any other type of place.

For example, if I search for [restaurants dallas] on my mobile phone now, I'm presented with a list of local results as usual. Now, if I click on the name of the place, I instantly see a summary of the business, with reviews, photos, and more details, similar to the local information you see when searching on your computer. Okay, this place looks fine, but what about the other results from the list? With a simple swipe of the page left or right, I can see the local result before or after this one, to quickly compare the different options and make a decision on where to eat.

This is available worldwide on Android and iOS devices. Now I can't wait to go traveling and try this out when I'm hungry elsewhere in the world!

Posted by Dan Zivkovic, Software Engineer

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A faster, simpler Google Search app for iPhone

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and Google Mobile Blog)

Starting today, when you use the Google Search app on your iPhone, you’ll see a completely redesigned interface that gives you faster results, beautiful full-screen image search, and a simple way to access all your Google apps in one place.

Search by voice, by typing, or with your camera

Get results, fast

When you’re on the go, you usually want to get things done quickly. Autocompletion of search suggestions is significantly faster in this latest version of the app, bringing you search predictions instantly with each letter you type. You’ll also notice that results load faster, and checking out webpages is easy with the slide-in panel. Quickly swipe back and forth between webpages and your search results, and swap between search modes like Images and Places with a swipeable menu. Finding text within a webpage is a snap as well; just try tapping the magnifying glass on the bottom menu option on any page.

Easily switch between search modes using the swipeable menu at the bottom	Swipe the slide-in panel to instantly return to your search results

Beautiful Image Search

Searching for images will never again be a chore. Tap the images button at the bottom of the search results page, and watch high-resolution images load into a beautiful grid. Browse the images by scrolling down the full-screen grid, or tap on a single image to get details about it and then quickly swipe from image to image. You can also tap and hold an image to save it to your camera roll to use as your wallpaper or share with a friend.

Full-screen image results take advantage of every inch of the screen

Swipe or tap on the edges to move between images

Sutro Tower image by Marc Liyanage

Simple access

We’ve put all of your favorite Google services in one place for easy access. You can choose to browse Google web apps, or see just the apps that you have on your phone. Sign in once, and you’ll never need to sign in again to check a quick email, view your next calendar appointment or see what’s hot on Google+.

All your Google mobile apps in one place

Download the Google Search app now for a fast, beautiful, simple search experience on your iPhone.

Posted by Noah Levin, Interaction Designer, Google Search app

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