With optimized results for mobile phone users

Oct 23, 2009 08:18 GMT  ·  By

Search engine company Google announced on Thursday a new feature available with its Google Custom Search, namely the fact that it now formats search results to fit on mobile phones. Google Custom Search, as many of you might already be aware of, enables web site owners to add Google-powered search boxes to their sites. According to the company, the move towards fitting search results to mobile phones has been driven by the fact that an increasingly large number of web search traffic comes from smartphones.

The new feature, Google says, can be enjoyed by any Android-powered phone, iPhone, iPod Touch, or Palm Pre owner that uses his or her handset to enter a website that features a Google Custom Search box. As soon as a search is performed, users will receive optimized search results that have been specifically formatted for said devices.

Here's how the company describes the new feature on its official blog: “When they search on your web site, they are redirected to a Google-hosted Custom Search results page created specifically for your Custom Search engine. If you'd like to serve these mobile results from your own web site, you can host your own version of the mobile Custom Search home page.”

According to the company, mobile phone users can already try out the new feature on their handsets in a simple manner: “search for user-generated content (e.g., search for "zakumi") from sites like Wikipedia or Knol, or look for more information on Custom Search (e.g., search for "promotion").” The Custom Mobile Search results should be a match to the look and feel of the website that sports the Google Custom Search box. Moreover, a series of other features, including label tabs for navigation and promotions, have been also included in the mix.

Enabling a rich interactive mobile experience for handset owners is not the only ace that Google has up its sleeve for users and web site owners that have Custom Search boxes on their pages; it seems that additional features are bound to make their appearance in the near future, so stay tuned to learn more on this.

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Google Custom Search formats results for mobile phone users
Google Custom Search formats results for mobile phone users
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