Friday, September 25, 2009

Jump to Search Snippet

Google is rolling out an improvement to the search function. This is not a change to their search algorithms, but in how you get to what you are looking for. When searching, a mini blurb or excerpt is show under the link to give you an idea the result has what you are looking for. In pages with a lot of text, you may only be interested in the content surrounding that small snippet, but it can be frustrating trying to find it. Previously you had to either skim the page or try a "find". Google now offers a direct link to open the page right where the snippet is to make the process easier.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/jump-to-information-you-want-right-from.html

"Normally, a search snippet shows how a page, as a whole, relates to a your query by excerpting content that appears near and around where your query terms show on the page. But what if only one section of the page is relevant to your search?

That's where these new features can help, by providing links within the snippet to relevant sections of the page, making it faster and easier to find what you're looking for. Imagine, for example, that we're researching trans fats and cholesterol, and their effects on the body. If we start with a generic query like [trans fats], Google returns several results with lots of information about trans fats in general, including this result from Wikipedia:

Now, included with the snippet are links to specific sections within the page, covering different subtopics of trans fats. Since we're particularly interested in what's healthy and what's not, "Nutritional guidelines" is probably where the most relevant information is. Clicking this link will take you directly to that section, midway down the page.
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