11 June 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

Google's homepage experiment cut short

Search seraph Google tends to lead the way when it comes to search engine trends, but once in a while an experiment backfires - as seems to have been the case with its poorly-received 'experiment' in customising the Google.com homepage with artistic images.

Observed by many industry commentators to be reminiscent of the style of Bing, the randomly generated background images appeared for many registered users on Thursday unannounced - though Google has explained that it was not its intention to thrust the new designs on users without warning.

"We had planned to run an explanation of the showcase alongside it -in the form of a link on our homepage," said Marissa Mayer, vice president of Search Products & User Experience at Google, in the company's official blog.

"Due to a bug, the explanatory link did not appear for most users. As a result, many people thought we had permanently changed our homepage, so we decided to stop today's series early."

The blog explained that these homepage images were intended as a 24 hour experiment, but because most users did not receive the explanatory link - and reacted negatively to what they believed to be a permanent change, for which they could not opt out - V3.co.uk reports that the experiment was ended after just 10 hours.

The Google blog explained that the experiment was intended to supplement a feature unrolled last week for registered users. Ms Mayer explained: "Last week, we launched the ability to set an image of users' choosing as the background for the Google homepage. Today, we ran a special 'doodle' that showcased this functionality by featuring a series of images as the background for our homepage."

Despite the obvious similarities between Google's homepage experiment and Bing's design, Microsoft has declined to comment. The level of backlash against Google's change, particularly among Twitter users, is further evidence that many users prefer a back-to-basics look for search engines - which has certainly done Google well in the past.

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