Searchology sees launch of new Google features

May 16, 2009
by Dave Freeman

Google recently released details of a number of new features to be added including:

- Rich snippets and microformats
- Date based searches
- Chameleon
- Spellmeleon
- Wonder wheel

So, before going into the detail of each feature are any of these features useful? And do they affect the Search Engine Rankings Pages (SERPs)?

Yes, rich snippets and microformats, chameleon and spellmeleon all affect the SERPs and the former could prove useful for certain verticals. Wonder wheel is not so useful, but rather a bit of search visualisation fun.

Google adds Rich Snippets via support for Microformats

Support for Rich snippets has been added to the SERPs to enhance user experience, by displaying additional information to users, (see image below) including user ratings and prices. The data is pulled into the current snippets through the use of additional meta data, provided from microformats such as hCalendar and resource description framework (RDF). Initially Google is only going to add rich snippets to its SERPs for certain queries.

So should you be planning to use microformats on your site? Yes. However, we don’t currently know what queries and which vertical will trigger Google to include rich snippets. This begs the question, should you be implementing the microformats on your site? In short there’s no easy answer. Sorry!

I’m sure sites that implement microformats that get used in the SERPs will see an increase in organic referrals. Once you implement the meta data you can contact Google to let them know that you are interested in displaying rich snippets .

For full details and documentation see the Google Webmaster Blog.

Date Based Searches

A feature that is not so apparent from Google’s main search page is the ability to restrict your search to certain time periods, currently Google has given the options for:

- The past year
- Past 24 hours
- Past week

Quite simply this feature adds more power to the user to refine searches in a way that suits them.

Chameleon

Now, this feature does effect the SERPs. Google have taken it upon themselves so insert a section starting at position 4 in their results that adds 3 results based on what you may have meant. Try doing a search for labour or poker , or see the image below and you can clearly see that Google has inserted 3 results that it deems you “may have been searching for”, thus knocking three very relevant results onto page two. However, this will only be applicable for certain search queries.

If this new feature affects you, there are two ways to ensure a first page position. The first is to ensure that you have a top seven ranking, and the second is to optimise for the keywords that Google suggests that you “may have” been looking for.

Spellmeleon

The spellmeleon feature is in fact quite useful, if you spell something wrong Google will display its usual “did you mean” line but now this is followed by two results for the correct spelling followed by the results for the incorrect spelling. If you are actually searching for misspells then you can just search using the operator [+misspelled keyword].

The Wonder wheel

I’m not too sure what to say about the wonder wheel as I haven’t made my mind up on it yet. My gut feeling is that the wonder wheel is just a bit of a gimmick. Its purpose? Well it’s just a graphical representation of your search, but with the addition of Google providing you with related queries on its wonder wheels. Am I going to be using it? In all honesty probably not – I only see myself using it if I get a bit bored (which, obviously, doesn’t happen at Latitude). But hey that’s just my opinion, give it a go for yourself and come to your own conclusions.