The New Google Search UI and What It Means For You

One week on after the launch of the new Google Search UI and reaction to the updated look and feel has been positive for the most part. Google has added a left panel to search result pages (SERP’s) to help searchers refine their search queries and find what they are looking for in a faster, easier way.

What’s New?

• There is a new panel on the left hand side to give quicker access to relevant search options and tools. The left panel is automatically open + fixed as opposed the show/hide options.
• The Google logo is bigger.
• The search field is 1.5 times longer.
• The search button now sits within the right end of the search field, whereas it used to be off to the right of the search field with a separating gap.
• Advanced search link is wrapped under the search button.
• No more horizontal blue bar between the search field and the results below it.
• Results data is now pulled up under the search field in a smaller text size.
• Results data now omits showing the results position. Showing us that by being on page 7 showed ‘Results 61 – 70′ was always helpful for manual ranking checks.

Google has a slew of products: Maps, Docs, Buzz, Chrome, Talk, Voice etc, but the Web Search product is the real bread and butter. So, its not surprising to find out that it has taken Google product managers and user experience designers months and months of testing, optimising and refining (at least as far back as Nov 2009) before the new Google Search UI got to the stage where it could be deployed.

Official Google Product Announcement

By looking at the social web, there’s not much buzz around the new Search UI, which should probably be interpreted as a positive outcome. People are continuing to search using Google either mildly affected or unaware of the minor changes. There’s a small group of bloggers who really don’t like it but as of yet there’s no group on Facebook decrying the update nor is there much buzz on Twitter.

It’s a bit of a departure for Google in some ways as it becomes a little bit more Bing-esque by having more links and search options automatically open on-page than ever before. Personally, I like it. I think the new UI looks good and helps me search and find the websites, news and images that I have been looking for.

Does the new Google UI change anything for SEO?

The updated Google Search UI update is purely aesthetic. It makes no difference to the ranking algorithm – so no changes there. However, the update does have an indirect effect on SEO because it changes the way in which searchers view the results. The organic search results are pushed into the middle of the page (arguably making them more prominent) sandwiched between the search options column and search ads column.

Also, since the search field is 1.5x wider I would expect this to influence search behaviour. Over time it will no doubt encourage people to do more long-tail searches. So instead of searching for “world cup 2010” we could expect a slight lift in the amount of people doing searches such as “world cup 2010 match schedule“.

Bonus Google UI Hack:

There’s no official option available to switch back to the ‘classic’ search results that we’ve all been using up til now. But if it bugs you, you can always go back to searching on the classic Google search interface by starting searches from: http://www.google.com.au/webhp?hl=all

What do you think of the new Google Search UI? Do you think that it looks more like Bing’s search interface? Leave your comments below.