Mountain View, California — Google is gearing up to start letting users customize its famously spartan home page with photos of their own. On Wednesday, search engine behemoth Google attempting to attract some of the Bing users and one-upping Microsoft’s Bing, who use the search engine for the background images on its homepage, began offering personalization tools to replace its famously white search page background with an image of their choosing. Now you can import your favorite picture and make it your Google desktop.
Why fuss? Do not most people evade the Google home page, and do searches through their browser or toolbar?
Not exactly, says Google vice-president Marissa Mayer. More than 50% of Google searches come from the classic home page, she says, “And just like people enjoy putting their favorite pictures on their desktop or cellphone, we thought this would be fun to do for the Google home page as well.”
Bing presents a different background image every day, chosen by Microsoft.
“Today, we are launching a new feature that brings a whole new level of personalization to Google by letting you add a favorite photo or image to the background of the Google homepage,” said Mayer, in a blog post. “You can choose a photo from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album or a public gallery hosted by Picasa which includes a selection of beautiful photos.”
Google’s decision to enable the customization of its search page might seem at odds with its dedication to speed — two years ago Google resisted adding a privacy link to its search page because every character added to the page means a slightly longer load time and slightly less user happiness.
Those tired of Google.com’s blank background will be able to set their own custom background over the next few days. (Credit: Google)
And for those who fear Google’s minimalist aesthetic will disappear, do not worry: You can still use the classic Google Search page whenever you wish.
Nevertheless, this is a major move in the company’s design philosophy, and one that shows it is paying attention to the competition. Microsoft’s revamped Bing search engine is a year old, and since the redesign went live has featured a striking photo linked to various search terms as the background for its home page. That is not a custom picture, of course, but it is an eye-pleasing addition to the page and one that Google was sure to have noticed.
However, Google has established a novel route to support search page personalization without affecting page load time.
“The homepage does not load any slower,” said a Google spokesperson via e-mail. “With or without a background image, the Google search elements show as quickly as before, allowing users to search just as quickly as without the new feature. We make this possible by post-loading the photo — we load the search elements first and then load the picture into your browser cache and show it as soon as it is available. Meanwhile you can already perform your search.”
Also, instead of having a daily image served to you like Bing does, Google allows you to select an image from your computer, from your Picasa web photos, or from a public gallery it provides (also from Picasa). The gallery is rather extensive, and you can search it (though you are presented with a message saying, “Only select images that you have confirmed that you have the license to use.”).
Mayer said that Google will be rolling out the feature to users in the U.S. over the next few days. Users for whom this feature has been enabled will see a link on the bottom left-hand side of the Google search page that says, “Change Background Image.” Users in other countries will start seeing it shortly as well.
Images must be at least 800 x 600 pixels and in one of the following formats: .jpeg, .tif, .tiff, .bmp, .gif, .psd (Photoshop), .png, .tga, and selected RAW formats.
The feature is independent of iGoogle, Google’s personal homepage feature.
At Mayer’s suggestion, Google users have begun publishing images of their customized search pages via Twitter, in conjunction with the hashtag #myGooglepage.
It would not be long before we see a screenshot of Bing as a Google background image.