Google release revamped mobile search

Following Yahoo!'s recent release of their new mobile search service, oneSearch, Google have seen fit to revamp their own mobile search service. The new system has been in the testing stage for a few weeks; but bugs have been ironed out and it has been unleashed into the mobile world.

Google release revamped mobile search When your mobile phone is pointed towards "http://mobile.google.com" what you now see is a mobile-enhanced version of the Google homepage, with links to search for a term or to build a personalised homepage for yourself.

Google's aim, as laid out on their official blog, is to provide the most relevant services for its users while they are on the move. Google Account holders can log in to their homepages and view personalised gadgets and feeds, including weather, stocks or news, all laid out to fit onto a smaller screen. Users can add, re-order or edit all of the gadgets just as they would on their traditional Google homepage.

The mobile search algorithm has also been tweaked for Google Mobile. The algorithm now recognises if you are looking for web sites, images, local information and other similar information. If you were to search for "pictures of dogs", for example, the algorithm would automatically realise that you are probably carrying out an image search for "dogs" and so would promote image results to the top of the results page.

Similarly, if you searched for "McDonalds", the algorithm would show you the addresses of McDonalds restaurants in your default locality at the top of the results, along with a link to a map highlighting McDonalds restaurant locations.

Other small alterations made to the new Google Mobile Search service are the merged mobile and web results. Pages specifically created for mobile phone viewing will have a small phone symbol next to their link. Additionally, instead of cycling through a whole page to find what has been searched for, Google will automatically show the relevant portion of the webpage.

The calculation function, as well as some fact functions, are noticeably absent from this reincarnation of Google Mobile, which means searching for gems such as "2386 furlongs in lightyears" can't be done on the move. But it's highly possible that Google may well implement these features in the future, just as they have with movie search information.
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