Google Announces the Next Step in Search Technologies

Google announced on Wednesday its plans to revamp its searching technologies, developing a universal search model that would provide web sites, video, news, and other related results on the same page.

Melissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience at Google, explained that the company's focus has always been making searches as simple and straightforward as possible.

"The ultimate goal of universal search is to break down the silos of information that exist on the Web and provide the very best answer every time a user enters a query," Mayer said in a statement. "While we still have a long way to go, today's announcements are a big step in that direction."

According to Greg Sterling, Principal Analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, the new searching system won't be too much different to users that have been using Google's OneBox, which the new system will eventually replace.

"The most obvious and striking change is the inclusion of video in search results. In some cases, such as Google Video or YouTube, the streams will be watchable from a player embedded in the results pages," Sterling said.

The new Google search will provide detailed information related to the search subject and not only websites that mention the subject, but also digital images, news, videos, maps and books, exposing vertical content that isn't as exposed, such as Google Books.

"Google has continued to concentrate on improving the quality of search," Udi Manber, Vice President of Engineering at Google, said in a statement. "The level and speed of search innovation at Google has increased. Most of this innovation addresses basic ranking algorithms and is often not obvious to users. Users just see more accurate results, more often, in more languages, which is our primary goal."