Google has started offering search boxes within their search results. In the example above, a search box is offered for Amazon. The new service seems to be restricted to larger sites with a slant towards retails sites. Borders, BestBuy and OfficeMax offer the secondary box, as does a search for Wikipedia and The NY Times.
On the surface it would appear to be yet another dilution of Google’s famed simple interface, the very interface that helped put Google where it is today. And yet, some my find it useful.
Do you like Google’s new secondary search boxes?
- Yes
-
No
Total Votes: 1059
Started: March 4, 2008
(via: SEL)
it’s good, i like it – but i’d still very much prefer to search within Amazon’s site.
it feels weird to have results under google.
Possibly pure affiliate marketing as its best? Genius, think of all the extra revenue
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Kelsey
http://www.helpuu.com – The google-powered search engine that helps
Seems kind of useless, if its only the major retailers people are likely to go directly to their site. Who is going to search for amazon and then use google search, when they could just go to amazon?
Although if they are going to receive a commission on products sold it could be a great way to monetize search in addition to text ads.
This is an improvement, you get to target your secondary search without having to go to another page. This will reduce the time it takes to find things – a goodness.
With respect to the “classic” Google UI, the desires and needs of consumers change over time. Initially, the ultra simple Google UI was great. This was because the alternatives were daunting and difficult. However, the consumers have become more facile with these things, so over time a more complex UI can emerge. Consumers learn and eventually demand more power as they know more. I think it’s about time that a little more complexity was introduced into what is now an overly simplistic UI.
Beau
It will be interesting to see how this works out.
Was it broken? I vote for one search box.
This is just a simple ploy to keep eyeballs on Google’s pages. They have noticed, over the last few years, that sites such as wikipedia are cannibalizing their search business (hence clicks on ads). Thus, this is a simple fix by allowing users to search those sites and staying on Google. To the user, this is easier than going to a 2nd page and then looking for another search box (and 1 less page load). It will also potentially enable Google to get closer to tracking # of sales rather than # of clicks to a generic website because it is not hard to imagine this is the future of the revenue model on the Internet.
–AJ
I agree with Peter, if this new tool is strictly for the major consumer retail sites, it’s useless. Unless you’re an Internet newby, most people will know to go directly to Amazon for music, books, DVD’s and so forth and to OfficeDepot.com for office supplies.
Maybe the thinking is to sell the search tool to advertisers? Staples gets a search tool and Office Depot doesn’t??? As in; “do no evil” just think of new ways to make money?
It might be useful if it applied to more obscure websites – which would invariably mean that Google’s crawler will be working overtime, as if it weren’t already.
In the end, it’s not a negative, just of questionable value to most users.
Wasn’t this always an option when you specify in your search:
site:amazon.com
Say me conspiracy. But the first thing I thought when I read the news was “Is that yet another way Google uses its dominant market position to push their enterprise search server?”
Think how good the integration will be if the business runs a google’s enterprise search server?
Vote a big fat no. This sucks – this is basically them catering to the big boys…is there some way to “apply” to them to get a company involved.
If they make this equally open to all – that’s different.
This definitely puts the ball into the big retailer’s court by helping them monetize Google better – that’s not always best for the consumer (as Google says they do best for the consumer). 90% of the time I buy something online, I get a MUCH BETTER deal from a smaller retailer.
Mystery CEO
I’m amazed how they still can improve/invent things. Will it ever stop?
Typing google into the google search box brings up search boxes ad infinitum.
Why so complicated?
site:amazon.com please.
I’ve been telling my friend at Google this for about a year now. Hopefully this will be available for any site soon.
It’s frustrating when a site has no search option or their results are poor.
He told me about searching in the box on a specific site (e.g. KEYWORD SITE: AMAZON.COM) as mentioned above. I argued that people want an easier time of it.
A search within a search. I also want Google Alerts to offer similar functionality. Love that feature and thanks for the post.
Promoting their search over that of the retailer. Google’s no longer evil. Evil’s Google.
So yeah, when you search in the secondary box, it just takes you to the “[search terms] site:amazon.com” results page. My guess is they’re testing out with some of the bigger sites to see its usage before deciding whether to roll it out everywhere.
Thumbs down on this.
From my perspective this is not an improvement, and hijacks the search experience from the site in which the search result reflects.
This concept also would seem to go against Google search principals, especially in regards to simplicity and a single-point of user engagement for search.
Multiple search boxes = highly confusing to general public (eBay.com user research findings)
Extra search boxes for the bigger players in Google search results…experiment for affiliates dollars?
Google, does comeup with useful idea’s this company inspite of its big size never ceases to amaze me!!
Google is getting desperate.
This is just to make it easier to use their search interface to search rather than the one on the site so you get exposed to google ads for products. For instance, if I search for ‘amazon’, then search for ‘microwave’ in the new site search box i get google ads for microwaves and organic results from amazon. Before I would click on the link to amazon and search there and google wouldn’t have the possibility of making any money.
Dumb. If I want to search amazon I’ll either go to amazon or select amazon from the dropdown in the firefox search. Why would I search for amazon on google only to then search within amazon from the results page? I’m not sure what problem this fixes except the problem that Google SERPs are clean and easy to use.
Ah, this is great. I can’t remember how many times I’ve had to search Google for “amazon.” A total timesaver!
Google’s search is often better than the home-baked local alternatives and this gives those who don’t already know about site:example.com an obvious way to use it.
Amazon is a bad example – if you were to search for a type of product, then see a search bar under the site of a niche retailer, it might be more direct to use it than to go to the site to search.
Ooops, Google is going down the AltaVista route. Piling on the complex bullshit until people wish for a simple search engine, like Google!
It’s an interesting concept but will it be available when seraching for a keyword?
If I use google to search for a specific book title, and the amazon listing is first, will the second search box appear?
Another attempt to leverage their algorithm.
I think it creates efficiencies. Not sure it is the right UI.
It would be funny if they showed a secondary search box for Yahoo! ;P
lol @ #2 … you think? affiliates? Is google really just a big bloated shoemoney??
For starters, Google doesn’t “Affiliate” they “partner” … affiliates make cents, partners make dollars… ?(yes, even by shoemoney’s standards… remember who signed shoemoney’s checks… chump change.
)
i forgot to mention that Wikipedia does not offer an affiliate program, making that argument Null and Void (in addition to outrageous and somewhat ignorant… not in a bad way, but not in a good way either).
I am not sure whether is it a good idea or not. It must be a “Sponsored Search Box”, not bad idea for Google to make money. According to some statistics that I read days ago, about 80% of user’s activities in internet is searching. They know that!!!
Yahoo! Search already has the feature. Trying searching for youtube
fantastic idea to keep eyes on google. what will the targets (amazon etc) have to say about it though?
I think this is a win-win solution. From amazon’s (sticking with your example) point of view, it is a way of pulling in all those “general searches”
It is in Google’s interest to enable it for every site (subject to usability issues). I would imagine there will be a setting allowing us to turn it off.
Google never ceases to impress me.
This is a cool feature, but I’d honestly just rather search on Amazons site.
this is the most crappy idea from Google…
i like the idea behind this, just as long as it doesnt get too crowded with EXTRA search boxes
This is clearly useful not for the long-tail searches but for those times you type “Amazon” or something similar into the main search box. Great idea, and certainly easier to use for most than site:amazon.com.
I think this is very wise idea, but I thot google would do it for paid searches.
In india, this is now available yet.
well , not a fantastic idea ——– google may try to change the algorithms it is currently employing to rank the sites —— instead of page ranks , it could go for some other methods .
damn. google should not enter the search option on other sites? and the next step is amazon.com or my own website with google design and templates?????
stop google!!
This one makes a lot of sense. With 30% of the query stream dedicated to navigational queries, there’s a huge UX and revenue opportunity here.
TechCrunch users may know how to use site:, but the rest of the world doesn’t. Plus, the refined queries are much more monetizable.
Even better than adding a box for “site:amazon.com” option, would have been to use the OpenSearch (if available) of the site itself therefore using the search engine of the site instead of Google. So if Google hasn’t indexed a file that the web site’s search engine did, Google will not find it, but the web site’s search engine, who has a more intimate knowledge of the site would.
I agree with the “if ai’n broke” crowd. I’d rather search the vendor’s site than “site:”. using “site:” is goof for sites who do not have a search box or if their search box offers few results. As an aside, it does not work with google’s 4 experimental searches (http://www.goog...om/experimental). That is, it does not work if you “joined” an experiment. I have bookmarked the google Suggest, so I can access it without “joining” per se.
ugh… if you’re competing with one of these (if only with a small niche of them, like a particular product space that amazon has), this bites.
The more attention drawn away toward the big boys makes life harder for the smaller fish. I’d guess it was a paid deal, except wikipedia’s on the list…
When I use Amazon’s own site to search, I get pictures, pricing information and nice sorting options. With Google’s search, I only get page titles and some text around the keyword. Nah!
If they redirected the search directly into amazon’s results, for example, it would be a more useful option as it would eliminate one more click I need to do.
@Sami Bay
Redirecting to the search of an another site is exactly what OpenSearch was designed for, ergo my suggestion.
For those who don’t know what OpenSearch is, it’s the standard behind the search box in the menu of your browser window. Basically any site can have one and the search results presented are those of the site.
dumb
The average searcher isnt familiar with using ’site:’ Highlighting site search within search will encourage sites where it appears to look more closely at what is indexed in Google and will push them to index more content. And obviously it makes Google more sticky which Google will of course love.