Microsoft’s recently launched search engine Bing seems to have stolen some thunder off Google and Yahoo. There is a lot of buzz surrounding Bing in the online arena. While it may be premature to measure its effective success and to considered it a Google killer; one thing is certain that Bing is enjoying some early success (we would not want to call it a runaway success, not as of yet). The web is dotted with news articles that report a healthy growth in Bing’s market share and all the fabulous things you can do with this new search engine. It appears to be an Early Christmas for Bing and this very fact is potentially unsettling the Big G.
Google is fighting back, or so it seems, to get back into the limelight by resurfacing in the media glare. How exactly is Google planning to do that? Via it’s newly launched “Explore the world of Google search”.
There is nothing new to having help pages that tell searchers how best to utilize the power of search and what more can be done using search engines. Google has had a help page, similar to what we just mentioned, for quite sometime now. Yahoo and Bing offer similar help pages to assist searcher better/fully use their respective search engines. The difference lies in Google’s decision to link this help page directly from the home page. This move is a clear indication of Google’s intention to fight back and show general searchers what more can be done via Google search engine. This sentiment is echoed in the opening paragraph of “Explore Google Search” page, a refreshing improvement over the earlier page.
“Search is at the heart of everything we do at Google. Our engineers work every day to solve the hardest search problems, and thus improve your online experience. Here’s a glimpse at what they do, the features they’ve built and the remarkable user stories that inspire our work.”
Google is definitely trying to ‘up the ante’ by these subtle value additions, probably because it now considers Microsoft’s new search avatar Bing as a serious contender in the search arena. Google rarely makes changes to its home page and we therefore cannot dismiss this change to be a ‘no big deal’ affair. Rumor has it that Google is busy planning many more ‘value added’ features for its vast user base.
Update: We were in the process of reviewing this post before publishing it when something else caught our attention. Google home page now sports a new “Add themes” feature for iGoogle.
What do we make of it? If you have seen Bing’s home page, you would know exactly why Google if offering this ‘add on’. Here is what you can expect to get.
Google has made two changes to its home page in as many days and we believe that this trend will continue. We can’t remember Google making changes to its home page in such quick successions, probably because it was not mandated in the past. Google, it appears, means serious business and is willing to go that extra mile.
