I use Google’s ability to search for links from a specific time frame all the time, for example. I couldn’t do without it, it’s also accessible and minimalist. I also quite often switch between the different kinds of links I can search for.
I don’t see much on the results page one could reasonably remove. Exposing some of the advanced search options in the UI was the right step for Google to take. They didn’t pick everything, only the most important stuff. It’s all still very minimal.
Big annoyances for me:
1. Auto suggesting and searching for words I didn't mean - common with technical phrases
2. Ignoring "quoted terms" and searching for them as an AND instead
3. Auto refreshing the results page as I modify my terms - it makes the experience slower, and I don't need to see results for half-typed words
There's probably more I can't bring to mind right now.
Having the arrow keys go directly to search results is very useful especially because it takes three or four times less presses to navigate that way than using tab. Besides, if I want to scroll, I can always use the space bar--it's faster anyhow.
(I know me-too comments are generally frowned on, and quite right too, but we have a senior Googler reading this thread and comment scores are invisible now...)
Note to self: read article and comments thoroughly before commenting to avoid being redundant.
I for one love instant and suggestions.
Many times it seems like it does, to the extent that I've even gone back and replaced double-quotes with singles in hopes that the parser distinguishes literals.
That's how we improve fastest. But generally, the way we get results shouldn't result in a lot of stuff actually missing, which may speak to some bugs in there.
Which sucks, because I hands-down full-on no-buts prefer DDG's interface to Google.
I hope I'm not being uncool here, but a while back I privately suggested mining the data from "!g" queries as a way to see where DDG wasn't returning the results that people expected. Is there a reason you can't do that? In my case at least, I usually start with DDG, and if I don't get what I'm expecting, then I use a "!g" -- so you'd have a nice little database of results to perform comparisons from.
I'm going to switch again and start sending DDG results that aren't helpful.
Not sure how you could provide for that, though.
If you search for some things (try "stack overflow" or "red bull"), you seem to get a near-instant results for the thing judged most likely/relevant in a red box at the top of the page, then the "ordinary" results are loaded separately, I think in a separate javascript call.
They seem to have a some split architecture that keeps a few bits spooled up for quick retrieval, and say to heck with the rest. My first instinct would be that they're RAM-poor, and also wonder if, not being able to cache sufficiently in RAM, they're also being hamstrung by I/O performance on EC2.
I guess Google are sniffing for a WebKit useragent to detect a modern mobile browser.
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=000183394137052953072%3Azc1orsc...
But scrolling seems to be somewhat broken.
Removing the "In Cache" link probably makes the user interface less cluttered. I used it a lot, and had to go look for it yesterday. From the official support thread:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Web+Search/thread?tid=...
But I don't have the user data that Google has. If less than 1% of the users account for the "in cache"-usage, the solution to require an extra click to get to it, is more sane, viewed in that light.
Shouldn't be too hard to make a browser plug-in / Greasemonkey script, so to add a link to:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.yc...
directly under search results.
EDIT: I'd like if someone would reply if they disagree. Do you dispute that each search costs money to Google, or what?
"I am getting a hunch (just a vague feeling) that we might be approaching a time where a new, simpler search experience would pick up a lot of users - maybe amongst us HN/early adopters?"
If it was a top level comment, you'd have a point.
They probably do, but Google is unlikely to be immune to corporate pathologies, where for example it is politically impossible for some team to leave well enough alone. I suspect that could easily end up trumping split test results.
Other times the differences are subtle but increase the click-through rate by surprising amounts.
Thus, I think it makes sense that it's hidden in the preview flyout than having "cached" repeated over and over again. Makes for a much cleaner search results page.