April 2008 Archive

Search Switching

For some time now I have been speaking and writing about ways of speed searching and search switching. Somehow, I've neglected to add the links to my site. So I'm fixing that tonight, before my presentation on Wed. at CIL 2008. The new Search Switching page includes sections for Search Switching Between Web Search Engines, Geographic Search Switching, Book Search Switching, and other options including another link to my Bookmarklets page (with its search transfer bookmarklets).

See also my article, "Speed Searching," in the March 2008 issue of Online (available for fee at ITI's InfoCentral or free from many library databases such as AccessMyLibrary) and my article, "Switching Your Search Engines," from the May 2007 issue of Online (available from many library databases including AccessMyLibrary).

Related Searches Moving Up?

So maybe I missed this earlier, but today is the first time I noticed Google showing related search suggestions at the top of Google results. In this case, I just happened to run on search for talking heads, trying to get an example of integrated content. While it worked for that, it also gave this one line of "Related searches:" at the very top. This is the first time that I can recall seeing this at the top.

Whether this is just one of Google's many user interface tests that may just run a short time or may continue and be seen at more searches, I don't know. Maybe it only shows up for music groups, although it did not for a few other searches I just tried. So far, the only other search I found that showed "Related searches:" was beatles. Anyone else seeing this?

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