Google Experimental / Universal 17 May 2007

It's official. Not content with Google Labs and SearchMash, Google has created a new playground called "Google Experimental".

Google Experimental lets you experiment with a variety of new search features, such as timelines, keyboard shortcuts, left-handed search navigation and right-hand contextual search navigation. The last two allowing you to drill-down to narrow your search.

In addition, Google is remodelling good 'ol Google.com. The links ("news", "images" etc) that once sat atop the search box have been shifted to the top left; while the "more" menu now contains a load more options for performing different types of Google searches. Take a look here for illustrations.

Both of these developments are part of Google's new masterplan - "Google Universal". The basic idea being to bring together all of the search products the company provides, so that users can access them from a single search box on the Google homepage. This make a lot of sense. I'm so tired of having to search the web in one place and blogs in another.

[via Phil Bradley / search engine land]