The love did not stop there. If one visited Google’s homepage via IE on WP7, there’s a big option to pin Google on your homescreen. Here’s what it looks like:

Once pinned, a tile to google.com’s mobile website is added to the homescreen and I quite like the tile icon:

While Google doesn’t have an official app for WP7, it is an interesting approach of using Microsoft’s new found love for turning web pages into applications; a trend that will continue with Windows 8.

Update: @harsha_g11 pointed out that the guys at WPCentral spotted this two weeks back.

Below is the whole change-log of the update -:

1. New color scheme and simplified UI
2. Faster
3. Enhanced suggestions and query editing
4. Better localized suggestions and search results for more countries
5. Long press on history items to remove them

An update for the Google Search widget was over-due for quite sometime now. In fact, Google had not updated the app since it released Android 2.2 FroYo.

The new update makes the widget much more usable and the UI simpler. The whole UI of the Google Search bar now feels similar to the Google Maps and other Google products, which is a good thing, since Google is known for inconsistent UIs across its product line.

The update is only meant for Android handsets running Android 2.2 or Android 2.3.  The new Google Search widget can be downloaded from the Android Market for free.

Amit Singhal, the person who has shaped Google Search for more than a decade, wrote, “We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships”. Google has been experimenting with Social Search for over two years. However, empowered by its own social network, Google is now going to go where it couldn’t or wouldn’t go earlier. It is dubbing the new experience as “Search, plus Your World”. It centers around three crucial features.

Personal Results: Just as the name suggests, Google will tap into your Google Plus circles to fetch content created and shared by your friends. Looking for a place to party on a Friday night? Google can pull up places your friends have visited along with their comments. The objective is to add more context to information so that the search results do a better job at answering your queries.

Profiles Search: Google is adding profile autocomplete that will scan your circles to suggest friends, in addition to celebrities and other public personalities. “So when I search for [ben smith], I now find my dear friend Ben every time, instead of the hundreds of other Ben Smiths out there”, explained Singhal. The results themselves will also have tight integration with Google Plus. The results will be hyperlinked to Google Plus profiles, and you will be able to add people to your circles directly from the search results page.

People and Pages: The new Google search results page will have a little sidebar called “People and Pages on Google+” that will highlight personalities and communities related to your search term. For example, if you search for music you will see profiles of popular singers and musicians like Britney Spears and Alicia Keys.

“Search, plus Your World” is possibly the most radical update to Google Search ever. Make no mistake about it, as it begins rolling out to the millions of Google users across the world, ramifications are going to be felt. Most people resist change, and even the smallest of them often triggers vociferous protests. Google’s new personalized search dramatically alters search results, and often pushes Google Plus in your face. While there are plenty of cases where a personalized result will be more relevant, there are plenty of occasions where they will in fact be detrimental. Personalized search often creates a myopic world where new and useful information is buried beneath the familiar and old. So it’s no wonder that some people are going to hate “Search, plus World”. In fact, lots of people are going to hate the new Google Search. Fortunately, Google also realizes this. For the first time ever, it will be really easy to opt out of personalized and social search. With the click of a button you will be able to toggle between global results and your personal results, on a query to query basis. You will be able to see and judge the pros and cons of personalized search for yourself.

Contrary to speculation from so-called pundits and analysts, the renewal of the search partnership got delayed not because of lack of interest from Google, but due to intense competition from Microsoft. Even Yahoo, which also uses Bing’s results, was in the race. As a result of Microsoft’s heightened interest, Google was forced to provide a minimum revenue guarantee of 300 million per year for three years, which is almost a three folds increase from the previous agreement.

Mozilla will continue to have search partnerships with Microsoft Bing, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo. However, it is the default search engine agreement that yields the maximum benefits for both sides. Opera’s default search agreement with Google will expire at the end of March, 2012. It will be interesting to see how much Opera Software, whose desktop browser is estimated to have less than 10% of Firefox’s market share, will be able to extract from a search deal.

Rebecca Black was the fastest rising search term in the US as well as around the world, while the Britons were captivated by the Royal Wedding, and Indians were perplexingly enough searching for Facebook on Google. Google Plus, Ryan Dunn, Casey Anthony, Battlefield 3, iPhone 5, Adele, and Steve Jobs were some of the other things the masses were searching for. The only news related search term to make it to the top ten was related to the TEPCO power outage.

The Zeitgeist is a reflection of public sentiment, and a sorry one at that. Enough Indian men were intrigued by a model’s promise of nudity to have propelled her into the top ten, while more pressing issues such as inflation and corruption didn’t even register. Year end reports published by Yahoo and Facebook also painted an equally embarrassing picture.

Zeitgeist 2011 features improved visualization tools and allows you to dig into month wise trend reports from across the globe spread over dozens of categories. Head over to googlezeitgeist.com and start exploring.

Power users were not happy with the removal of ‘+’. They complained because the ‘+’ operator was handier than quotes. To pacify those users, Google has brought back the usability of the ‘+’ operator and quotes. However, this time, it has been put it in a drop-down style menu, and is called verbatim.

While the verbatim mode cannot justify the missing ‘+’ operator, it does a good job by searching for exact terms in the query. Moreover, the withdrawal of the ‘+’ operator was inevitable, given that less than 0.5% of searches used it, and out of those, two-third of them did not know how to use it correctly.

The Inside Search blog announced the verbatim search, saying:

With the verbatim tool on, we’ll use the literal words you entered without making normal improvements such as

• making automatic  spelling corrections
• personalizing  your search by using information such as sites you’ve visited before
• including  synonyms  of your search terms (matching carwhen you search [automotive])
• finding results that match  similar terms  to those in your query (finding results related to floral deliverywhen you search [flower shops])
• searching for words with the same  stem  like runningwhen you’ve typed [run]
• making some of your terms  optional, like circain [the scarecrow circa 1963]

You can access the verbatim search tool under More search toolson the left-hand side.

How to use Verbatim Search in Google?

Using the new verbatim search in Google is simple. It takes only two steps. First, you type-in your search query and perform a regular search. Do you notice how Google enforces a correction?

Then, in the left sidebar, expand “More search tools” to get the verbatim option.

Click on it and the search result will change, searching for the exact text you were looking for.

Apart from verbatim, Google is also working on a better search algorithm that will decide whether to correct the search query automatically,  or not.

A new treat can now be found on Google search when you search for the term "Do a barrel roll". When you perform this search at Google.com the search page will flip over and rotate just like a plane would do while it is doing a barrel roll.

According to Wikipedia:

A barrel roll is an aerial maneuver in which an airplane makes a complete rotation on its longitudinal axis while following a helical path, approximately maintaining its original direction. It is sometimes described as "a combination of a loop and a roll". The G-force is kept positive (but not constant) on the object throughout the maneuver, commonly between 2-3 G, and no less than 0.5 G.

So go ahead and to a barrel roll at Google by search for "Do a barrel roll" or just click on this link.

Bonus: Try searching for "tilt" and "askew" as well.

Thanks for the h/t @slate.

It is Google’s way of determining which authors are trustworthyand whether you, as a user, would derive value from the authors content. Google uses a lot of different signals to determine whether this particular user enjoys reading the posts of this particular author. This includes relevancy of the page, user’s query, social connections, mutual interests, links, engagement, return visits, previous search history and so on.

Implementing author markup in your website was a little geeky, here is the classical way to do it:

1. On your website, you have to create a dedicated author page which should link to the Google Plus profile of the author using the rel=meattribute. (see example)

2. Every post written by the author on his website must link to the author page using the rel=authorattribute. (check the author bio section of this post)

3. The Google Plus profile of the author must link back to the author page on the same domain. (My Google Plus profile links back to the author page of Techie Buzz)

When all of the above three conditions holds true, Google will re-crawl your entire website and there is a high chance that your Google Plus author thumbnail will be shown on search result pages. Here is an example:

Google has now made it easier to add author markup tags on pages which is beyond your control.   There can be situations when you might not have enough access privileges to modify internal codes, template files and add the HTML code for author markup. In such scenarios, you can use your Google Plus verified email address to implement author markup and tell Google that you wrote this content.

To do this, go to your Google Plus profile, click Editand add your email address in the new contact infotext field. Next, add this same email address along with your name on the blog post you write. This is applicable on any blog where you contribute posts, not just your own website or personal blog.

Modifications In The Display Of Author Thumbnails

Additionally, Google has slightly tweaked the display and layout of author thumbnails on search results. Previously, the thumbnails used to appear at far right but as of now, the photos are placed left aligned to the meta description of the post. Here is an example:

Some things to note:

• Circle count: Google shows the Google Plus circle count of the author, which can be a measure of popularity and reach.
• Name of the circle: On rare occasions, Google also pulls in the name of the circle, in case the author is already present in one of your Google Plus circles and you heavily interact with him or engage with his updates (comment, reshare, +1… you name it).Here is an example:

  

  I have added Barry in a circle called Searchand when I searched for [SEO eye tracking], I was shown the above listing. It is important to note that this result only appeared when I was logged into my Google Plus account and Google’s algorithm was able to gauge the connection between me, Barry, mutual connections, my search query, Barry’s blog post and his share on Google Plus.

• Comments: Some webmasters have reported that Google also shows number of comments and comment previews directly under the Meta description of a Google Plus post. Here is an example:

Personally, I like things that are simple, easily discoverable and as fluid as water.

Author thumbnails helps cut the clutter but excessive integration with Google Plus is again another distraction. At the end of the day, it is an algorithm which doesn’t have human eyes so spammers are already preparing their false fronts, trying to game the system and make the maximum profit out of this.

Whether they win or lose is just a matter of time; but I have this feeling that the prying nose of a social network can sometimes cause biased results. Crowdsourcing user signals is one thing but placing your banners all over the place is like trying to win the battle by crushing your own army.

Two years back, Google search was so simple.  No background images, no YouTube crap, less ads and distractions.

Enter 2011 and we have Google maps, YouTube ads, Adwords advertisements, local results, related searches, best guess match, a left column, instant search, plus one button and so on. Google Plus integration is just adding to the noise for many.

Ask yourself   Do you use all these features on Google search result pages? I don’t, to be honest.

In the image below, I typed “cast of friends” in the search box. It returned most of the main characters as a best guess. Also notice that it shows the sources for its answer. This particular search also had a feedback button at the bottom. When I clicked it, I had to choose a yes or no answer as to whether this was useful information or not.

Below, I searched for “who is married to ashton kutcher”. Notice it returned “Best guess for Ashton Kutcher Spouse”. I found the wording a little interesting. Notice there is no feedback button on this result.

The last search I tried was “capital of kentucky”. It returned “Frankfort” which is correct.

It appears the service is designed to answer simple questions that may have one or two word answers. If they ever get this perfected, it may be the ultimate Trivial Pursuit resource. In its current state, however, it is pretty unrefined.   In my experience, it was hard to find a pattern of what it would try to guess on. It seemed to consistently tell cast members of TV shows, but it wouldn’t tell you things like “who was the 15th president of the U.S.” I have to say most searches that I tried did not return the best guess. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when it failed to answer my query “how many licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop”. Oh well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.