This design is not an experiment, but rather, has been made official. The very noticeable tweak is meant to keep your eyes on what matters most and to make the company’s search experience consistent across web and mobile environments.
Options such as results from the last 24 hours are now harder to find, but they are there. Ultimately, the whole concept for the tweaked look is to deliver a consistent search experience “across the side variety of devices and screen sizes people use today” for users. With the lack of sidebars, while transferring the search options to a bar on top of the search results page, Google has freed up additional room for its Knowledge Graph results.
Those included in the stream so far will see a more modernized search page. The left-hand column options to search images, maps or shopping are now presented across the top, with other options such as news and video relegated to a ‘More’ drop-down menu. To access options to confine results by recency or location, you need to click ‘Search tools’ and then select from two new drop-downs. The previous version also used a More button and a search tools link in the left-hand column, but had news, video and results from your country always visible. (The country-specific option has been replaced with ‘Nearby’.)
Expounding on the latest update, the company executive said, “You will notice a new simpler, cleaner design on the search results page,” Google search lead designer Jon Wiley wrote in a blog post. “With the new design, there is a bit more breathing room, and more focus on the answers you are looking for, whether from web results or from a feature like the Knowledge Graph.”
The revamp only applies to the main Google.com US page right now, but Google says it will roll out to other countries over time. However, removing the tools from the side does not give the results more real estate though. Curiously, some of the results do not have any advertisements displayed with them, but that may be a glitch from the testing as Google assures CNET the advertising placements remain the same.
In fact, Google said lately it has been concentrating on creating a “simpler, cleaner design” for its results page, starting with tablets last year before moving to smartphones a few weeks ago and now the desktop.
“With the new design, there is a bit more breathing room, and more focus on the answers you are looking for, whether from web results or from a feature like the Knowledge Graph,” Wiley, wrote in the blog post. The new design will go out to U.S. users first before it hits other countries.
The company initiated testing the new look in July, but not everyone got a peek.