New Google Search Results Page

Screenshots of Google's new design for their search results page have hit the web. Nothing revoloutionary, more of an evolutionary improvement. What I like about their approach is that the average user can continue to user the search service without having to change their behavior, but users can slowly discover these advanced features and make sense of them. Very smart. (NOTE: click on the thumbnail to see a larger image)

Here is a summary of what is new:

• The ability to expand a given search result to show more information from the page
• The ability to quickly and easily search within a page
• Related information is displayed along with the search result

There has been recent noise around revealing more information about a search result, Ask.com has really pushed the ability to preview a page from the results list and has received some positive press on their approach, Google outbid Microsoft to acquire a patent around this type of functionality from a PhD student.

I've been critical of many of Google's recent products. Most of them have missed the mark. However, they still do a great job on basic text search and look to continue on with that with these improvements.