Instant search

Instant search

Google Instant, a feature that displays suggested results while the user types, was introduced in the US on September 8, 2010. In concert with the Google Instant launch, Google disabled the ability of users to choose to see more than 10 search results per page. At the time of the announcement, Google expected Instant to save users 2 to 5 seconds in every search, collectively about 11 million seconds per hour. Search engine marketing experts speculated that Google Instant would have a great impact on local and paid search.Google Search is a turn from a static HTML page into an AJAX application.

Instant Search can be disabled via Google's "preferences" menu, but autocomplete-style search suggestions cannot be disabled, by intention.

The publication 2600: The Hacker Quarterly compiled a list of words that Google Instant did not show.Most banned terms are those considered rude, but some apparently irrelevant searches including "Myleak" are removed.

In September 2012 several sources reported that Google had removed bisexual from the list of blacklisted terms for Instant Search.As of August 2013 the word bisexual still did not autocomplete, and LGBT activists renewed efforts to have it whitelisted. As of June 2014 "bisexuality" (but not "bisexual") and "myleak" were found.

Redesign

In late June 2011, Google introduced a new look to the Google home page in order to boost the use of the Google+ social tools.

One of the major changes was replacing the classic navigation bar with a black one. Google's digital creative director Chris Wiggins explains: "We're working on a project to bring you a new and improved Google experience, and over the next few months, you'll continue to see more updates to our look and feel." The new navigation bar has been negatively received by a vocal minority.

In November 2013, Google started testing yellow labels for advertisements displayed in search results, to improve user experience. The new labels, highlighted in yellow color, and aligned to the left of each sponsored link help users clearly differentiate between organic and sponsored results.

On December 15th, 2016, Google rolled out a new desktop search interface that mimics their modular mobile user interface. To those unfamiliar with the mobile design, actually looks like, it consists of a tabular design that highlights search features in boxes. Imitating the desktop Knowledge Graph real estate, which appears in the right-hand rail of the search engine result page, these featured elements frequently feature Twitter carousels, People Also Search For, and Top Stories (vertical and horizontal design) modules. The Local Pack and Answer Box were two of the original features of the Google SERP that were primarily showcased in this manner, but this new layout creates a previously unseen level of design consistency for Google results.

Smartphone app

A Google Search mobile app is available for Android, Windows Phone and iOS devices. In addition to allowing users to perform web searches, the app implements Google Now, Google's voice recognition and intelligent personal assistant software. Google Now uses a natural language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of web services. Along with answering user-initiated queries, Google Now passively delivers information to the user that it predicts they will want, based on their search habits.Google Search for Android was originally introduced in 2007, the same year the Android operating system was introduced. On January 11, 2012, Google introduced an update where they included an updated and simplified user interface, along with other improvements. As of May 2016, around 20% of Google searches on Android used voice recognition.

International

Google is available in many languages and has been localized completely or partly for many countries.
The interface has also been made available in some languages for humorous purpose:

• Bork, bork, bork!
• Elmer Fudd
• Klingon
• Leetspeak
• Pig Latin
• Pirate

In addition to the main URL Google.com, Google Inc. owns 160 domain names for each of the countries/regions in which it has been localized.
On September 29, 2015, an Ex-Googler Sanmay Ved managed to buy the domain Google.com from Google via Google Domains, and gain full webmaster control. Google later acknowledged the purchase,and rewarded Ved who in turn requested that the reward be donated to charity. As a result, Google doubled the reward.

Search products

In addition to its tool for searching webpages, Google also provides services for searching images, Usenet newsgroups, news websites, videos, searching by locality, maps, and items for sale online. In 2012, Google has indexed over 30 trillion web pages, and received 100 billion queries per month. It also caches much of the content that it indexes. Google operates other tools and services including Google News, Google Shopping, Google Maps, Google Custom Search, Google Earth, Google Docs, Picasa, Panoramio, YouTube, Google Translate, Google Blog Search and Google Desktop Search.

There are also products available from Google that are not directly search-related. Gmail, for example, is a webmail application, but still includes search features; Google Browser Sync does not offer any search facilities, although it aims to organize your browsing time.

Also Google starts many new beta products, like Google Social Search or Google Image Swirl.

Energy consumption

Google claims that a search query requires altogether about 1 kJ or 0.0003 kW·h, which is enough to raise the temperature of one liter of water by 0.24 °C.

Possible misuse of search results

In 2007, a group of Austrian researchers observed a tendency to misuse the Google engine as a "reality interface". Ordinary users as well as journalists tend to rely on the first pages of Google search, assuming that everything not listed there is either not important or merely does not exist. The researchers say that "Google has become the main interface for our whole reality. To be precise: with the Google interface the user gets the impression that the search results imply a kind of totality. In fact, one only sees a small part of what one could see if one also integrates other research tools".

Predicting behavior

At the 2016 New Hampshire primary, the top-searched Democratic candidate was Bernie Sanders with 72% of the searches and won with 60% of the vote, according to real-time results of Google's trending search queries, and Hillary Clinton received 28% of the queries and 38% of the vote. The top-searched Republican candidate was Donald Trump, who received 41% of the searches an hour before the polls closed and won with 35% of the vote and John Kasich got 16% of both the vote and the searches.