14 DAY TRIAL // Google's Inside Search media event wasn't all about the main search page, mobile users got some love as well. Google unveiled two new features for mobile users, one of which is a new search homepage. Since mobile searches are frequently local searches, for places nearby, Google has now added buttons on the homepage for the most popular places categories.
Google is also making it easier to type long queries with suggestions catered for mobile devices enabling users to spell out their search query from suggested words and blocks of words.
"With more searches happening when people are on the go, we’ve noticed an increase in searches for nearby places," Scott Huffman, Director of Engineering, wrote.
"To make it easier for people to search for what’s around them, we’ve introduced new shortcuts to commonly searched local categories, like restaurants, coffee shops and bars, in the form of icons on the mobile google homepage," he announced.
The new homepage was spotted in the wild just prior to Google's announcement. The new homepage features buttons for restaurants, coffee and bars, but also a drop-down menu with access to more categories like shopping, ATMs, gas stations and so on.
The data is nothing new, everything comes from Google Places, but it is the first time Google has linked to it from the homepage, even though Places results show up in search results sometimes.
Google also introduced a new way of composing queries, useful especially for longer searches which are a pain to type on mobile devices.
"You can now add suggested phrases to the search box and 'build' your search piece by piece. This feature is already available on the Google Search app for Android and iOS devices and we’re now making this available on www.google.com from your mobile browser," Google explained.
You can check out the video below to see how the feature works in practice, for certain queries it will enable you to search a lot faster. There are plenty of Android keyboard apps that offer suggestions and suggestions have been around for quite a while on mobile Google Search, but the new feature takes the best parts of both approaches.