Inside Search
The official Google Search blog
“Now on tap” to help you with what you need in the moment, anywhere on your phone
May 28, 2015
Your mobile phone does wonderful things for you, but it’s still not always easy to find a quick piece of information or get something done on the fly while you’re in the middle of something else—like listening to music, texting your friends, or reading your email. Too often, you have to leave what you’re doing just to look for what you need somewhere else on your phone. Making it easy to find what you need is core to our mission, and today at Google I/O we previewed Google Now enhancements to help remove some of this hassle.
Since we launched Google Now, we’ve been expanding the ways it can help and do more of the work for you. You can get notifications like where you parked your car, news stories based on your interests, or help with travel like your upcoming reservations. We’ve also gotten better at giving smarter answers to some of your questions (“Is my flight on time?”) and at helping you get things done across your apps (“Ok Google, play Sugar on Spotify”).
We’re working to make Google Now a little smarter in the
upcoming Android M release
, so you can ask it to assist you with whatever you’re doing—right in the moment, anywhere on your phone. With “Now on tap,” you can simply tap and hold the home button for assistance without having to leave what you’re doing—whether you’re in an app or on a website. For example, if a friend emails you about seeing the new movie Tomorrowland, you can invoke Google Now without leaving your app, to quickly see the ratings, watch a trailer, or even buy tickets—then get right back to what you were doing.
If you’re chatting with a friend about where to get dinner, Google can bring you quick info about the place your friend recommends. You’ll also see other apps on your phone, like OpenTable or Yelp, so you can easily make a reservation, read reviews or check out the menu.
When you tap and hold the home button, Google gives you options that are a best guess of what might be helpful to you in the moment. But if you need something specific, you can also get Google to help by saying “Ok Google” from any screen, and any app. For example, if you’re listening to Twenty One Pilots on Spotify, you can say “Ok Google, who’s the lead singer” and get your answer right away.
As you’ve seen across these examples, Google can show you apps from your phone that may help with what you’re doing based on your context—IMDb for movie reviews, OpenTable for reservations, and many more. This is another way developers can get their apps in front of their users at the right moment, when an app is relevant to the task at hand. And best of all, developers don’t need to do anything to integrate with Now on tap as long as they have their
apps indexed by Google
.
We hope Now on tap can make your phone a little bit smarter and help you get things done quicker and in far fewer steps. We’ll be sharing more details about all this as we get closer to the release of Android M.
Posted by Aparna Chennapragada, Director of Product Management
Tweets take flight in the Google app
May 19, 2015
Starting today, we’re bringing Tweets to Google Search on mobile devices. So now when you’re searching on the Google app or any browser on your phone or tablet, you can find real-time content from Twitter right in the search results.
Whether you’re interested in the latest from Taylor Swift, news about the #MadMenFinale, or updates on the NBA playoffs, you’ll have access to it directly from Google. Let’s use NASA as an example—just ask the Google app about “NASA Twitter,” and in the search results, you’ll see Tweets from @NASA:
Or if you heard today was Malcolm X’s birthday, you can ask the Google app and see what various people and organizations in the Twitter community are saying about it.
It’s a great way to get real-time info when something is happening. And it’s another way for organizations and people on Twitter to reach a global audience at the most relevant moments.
To start, we’re launching this on Google.com in English in the Google app (on Android and iOS) and on mobile browsers, rolling out gradually. We’re working on bringing it to more languages and to desktop, so stay tuned.
Posted by Ardan Arac, Senior Product Manager
Cross-posted on the
Official Google Blog
New in the Google app: more Now cards from your Android apps
April 28, 2015
Our phones help us find answers to questions large and small, stay on top of what’s happening in our day and in the world, and get things done quickly. The Google app can help you do all that, faster, and in one place. And Now cards in the app proactively bring you information at the right time without you even having to ask.
Earlier this year, we started showing
Now cards from some of your favorite apps
on Android devices. Now, we're working with
70 new partners
to bring you
even more Now cards
from the apps you have on your phone.
For example, if you book a Zipcar out for a day hike, you can keep track of your return time and get directions to the drop-off location with Now cards – checking them is as easy as a simple tap on the Google app.
Or need a good a playlist on a Friday night? Now cards can recommend playlists and stations from Spotify, TuneIn or YouTube based on your preferences.
Here are a few other ways Now cards from your apps can help you out:
Get breaking news about the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake from ABC News, Circa, or feedly
Know when your pad thai is about to arrive with reminders from Eat24 that the food you ordered will soon be on your doorstep, or get inspired with the recipe of the day from Allrecipes
Keep your fitness goals front and center with gentle nudges from Runkeeper, Jawbone, or Adidas
And if you’re out to dinner, simply tap on a Now card to pay your bill with OpenTable
Make sure to update to the latest version of the
Google app
and your other favorite apps that work with this feature – then look out for helpful Now cards from those apps on Android over the next few weeks. Stay tuned as we add more apps and functionality in the future!
Posted by Aparna Chennapragada, Director of Product Management
Ranking change to help you find mobile-friendly sites rolling out today
April 21, 2015
We’ve all been there: you’re on your phone and click through to a website, only to find it’s hard to read or burdensome to navigate because it isn’t formatted for a mobile screen. With mobile phones increasingly becoming the primary way for people to search the Internet, we want to ensure that when you search on Google you find content that is not just relevant and timely, but also easy to read and interact with on smaller mobile screens.
A lack of mobile friendliness is also a problem for web publishers: visitors abandon websites that aren’t mobile friendly at higher rates. And
research shows
74% of users say they are more likely to return to a mobile-friendly site.
That’s why we’ve been encouraging webmasters to create sites that avoid the pitfalls of small text and hard to navigate formatting in order to provide a great experience for mobile visitors to their pages. Back in November, we introduced a “
mobile-friendly badge
” to notify users when a link in search results led to a mobile friendly-page, and
provided resources
to help webmasters become mobile-friendly. And today we’re starting to roll out a change that
we announced
two months ago to take into account whether a site is mobile-friendly when we rank search results on mobile phones.
Note that this is just one of over 200 signals we use to evaluate the best results. Non-mobile-friendly sites won’t disappear from mobile Search results—they may still rank high if they hold great content the user wants.
If you use Google search on your mobile phone, you can now more easily find high-quality and relevant results where text is readable without tapping or zooming, tap targets are spaced appropriately, and the page avoids unplayable content or horizontal scrolling. In just the two months since we announced this change, we’ve seen a 4.7 percentage point uptick in the proportion of sites that are mobile friendly, and we hope to see even more in the coming months.
Our mobile ranking will now use mobile-friendliness as a signal that weighs in favor of pages that are formatted for mobile phones, like the image on the right.
The good news is that it doesn't have to be expensive or time-consuming: it could be as simple as adjusting website settings or picking out a design you like. Even if you opt to fully redesign your site, a small business website with 10-20 pages could be completed in a day or so.
Webmasters can check if their site is mobile-friendly by examining individual pages with the
Mobile-Friendly Test
or checking the status of the entire site through the
Mobile Usability report in Webmaster Tools
. Once a site
becomes mobile-friendly
, we will automatically re-process those pages (and webmasters can expedite the process by using
Fetch as Google with Submit to Index
).
Posted by Cody Kwok, Principal Software Engineer
Follow the NCAA Tournament with the Google app
March 19, 2015
If you’re done filling out your bracket for the NCAA Tournament, the Google app is here to help you keep up with every second of the action. Whether you’re searching for an updated bracket, the score of the Kentucky game, or live streams of each game (powered by Turner Sports), you can find it all in
the Google app
on your Android or iOS device.
Check in with the Google app for the latest tournament coverage
Just say “Ok Google, show me the latest on March Madness” to get real-time coverage of every game throughout the tournament. You’ll see a bracket with in-game and recap videos, and with one tap you can get a detailed box score and livestream link for each game. And for those times you can’t sneak away from work to watch a game live, cards in the Google app will show you in-progress scores throughout the games.
Find content directly from your favorite apps
If you want up-to-date news on your favorite teams or to catch up on highlight videos in the apps you love—like NCAA March Madness Live or Bleacher Report—the Google app can help you find it all quickly and easily. On Android devices, clicking on search results from mobile apps you’ve downloaded will now take you straight to that content. (It takes about a day for newly downloaded apps to appear in your search results.)
As you join the frenzy this March, the Google app is the ultimate sports buff to help you in your office pool or to keep up with your alma mater. And don’t forget to follow us on
Twitter
to see which teams and players are trending in Search, posted in real-time throughout the tournament.
Posted by Yoav Schwartzberg, Product Manager, Google Search
More Protection from Unwanted Software
February 23, 2015
Cross-posted from the
Google Online Security Blog
SafeBrowsing helps keep you safe online and includes protection against
unwanted software
that makes undesirable changes to your computer or interferes with your online experience.
We recently expanded our efforts in Chrome, Search, and ads to keep you even safer from sites where these nefarious downloads are available.
Chrome
: Now, in addition to showing warnings
before you download unwanted software
, Chrome will show you a new warning, like the one below, before you visit a site that encourages downloads of unwanted software.
Search
: Google Search now incorporates signals that identify such deceptive sites. This change reduces the chances you’ll visit these sites via our search results.
Ads
: We
recently
began to disable Google ads that lead to sites with unwanted software.
If you’re a site owner, we recommend that you register your site with
Google Webmaster Tools
. This will help you stay informed when we find something on your site that leads people to download
unwanted software
, and will provide you with helpful tips to resolve such issues.
We’re constantly working to keep people safe across the web.
Read more about Safe Browsing technology and our work to protect users
here
.
Posted by Lucas Ballard, Software Engineer
Celebrate Mother Language Day by joining the Google Translate Community
February 20, 2015
February 21 marks the 15th anniversary of the UNESCO declaration of International Mother Language Day. Since then each Mother Language Day has promoted the preservation and protection of the approximately 7,000 languages that are spoken throughout the world, half of which are estimated to become extinct in a few generations.
In honor of Mother Language Day 2015, we've decorated the
Google Translate homepage
with an illustration that celebrates this year's theme of "inclusive education through and with language." Language education helps people connect with others both within and outside their local community.
Click on our illustration on the homepage to visit the
Google Translate Community
where you can help add new languages to Google Translate and improve those that are currently supported. We've already seen Cantonese, Kyrgyz and Pashto speakers contribute a lot, and we hope to continue our collaboration with these communities so we can eventually add these languages.
We hope you join us for Mother Language Day to improve translation for everyone and show pride for your language. We'll be highlighting the top languages with the most contributions to Translate Community over the next 48 hours on our
Google+ page
. Show some love for your language and help it get to the top of the list by
contributing
today!
Posted by Aaron Babst, Community/Program Manager, Google Translate
(Cross-posted from the
Google Translate Blog
)
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