New Additions to Google

This week in Search, which is run on Google’s official blog every Friday, has highlighted some new features which have been added to their search results.

The first of which is a feature called “Answer Highlighting”. It may not be the most advanced addition; however, by simply highlighting your search question into the results, this makes it very simple to find quick answers. The example Google gives to test the feature is: Who is the author of 1984? The answer is obviously George Orwell, as shown here.

http://www.google.com/search?q=who+is+the+author+of+1984

You will notice across the results that “the author of 1984” is strongly highlighted to improve results.

The next big addition is the increasing support for Rich Snippets. Rich Snippets are the extra mark-up you can add to your website’s content which allows Google to pull specific information (snippets) into its search results.

The new snippets supported are for events. The example on the blog suggests that if, for instance, you performed a search for Concerts in San Jose, you will find that the upcoming events are shown directly inside the results, much like a search result can have site links and website reviews.

If you are technically minded you can follow this link to see how you can add this feature to your website.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164506

Rich Snippets seems to be gaining in popularity since Google took a supported interest in them, and is now worth considering for any new website, to give it an edge in the rankings.

Chris Hutchison
Web Developer / Designer