This week in search 1/14/2011

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs on Fridays. Look for the label "This week in search" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

We’re back in action after a lovely holiday season, and this week we’ve made a few changes to help you find music videos and refine your searches. We also announced World IPv6 Day, which will help ensure Google can continue giving you fast, relevant search results for generations to come.

Better results for music videos
People often come to Google to find music videos, and this week we improved our results so now when you’re searching for your favorite band or album, you’ll find popular clips organized in a new way. For example, search for [michael jackson] and you’ll find some of the King of Pop’s most famous videos, including clear text indicating the length of the video, the album and the year it was published. The feature scans the entire web for video content and algorithmically ranks the best sources for each song. Rather than return repetitive links, we group results for the same song together, making it easier to scan and choose the song you’re looking for. Try searching for [green day], [maroon 5] or [beyonce] (for one of the best videos of all time!).

Google’s left-hand panel in Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew
This week we expanded Google’s panel of search tools to Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew, enabling people who read right-to-left languages to access a dynamic set of search tools. Now Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew speaking users can refine their searches by content type (Images, Videos, News) or date, and easily access special views like the Wonder Wheel and Timeline. We can’t call it the “left-hand panel” of search tools, because the panel is actually on the right!


World IPv6 Day
The Internet is bursting at the seams with limited address space, and IPv6 is the best solution to the problem. We have offered search over IPv6 since early 2008, but today only 0.2% of Internet users have native IPv6 connectivity. So on Wednesday, we came together with the Internet Society and other major websites to announce World IPv6 Day, the first global trial for the next generation Internet protocol. On June 8, 2011, Google and other companies will enable IPv6 on their services (including Google Search) for IPv6 for 24 hours. The trial will help motivate companies across the industry to prepare for the transition and ensure Google and the web as we know it can continue to thrive.

Posted by Ben Gomes, Distinguished Engineer