14 DAY TRIAL // Google usually introduces several new features or changes to its search engine each week, yet not all of them are worthy of an entire blog post from the company. One such new feature that you may have noticed is adding more refinements for certain searches.
To make sure that users don't miss out on anything, Google rounds up all of the past week's new features and improvements. The big addition was the introduction of Google Places. Google also added real-time results to its Social Search.
"This week we’ve overhauled local search and made other tweaks to help you find the places, products and people you’re looking for. As you plan for the World Series and Halloween, we want to help you find the perfect sports bar, costume store and chocolate bar," Google announced.
For certain generic searches, such as "chocolate" or "cameras," Google will now list what it calls "Related searches." Basically, it's a way of narrowing down your query based on brands, stores where you can get it as well as "types."
This should come in handy precisely when you're not sure what to look for, or want to see your choices, the reason why you'd run a generic search in the first place.
Another addition is not necessarily a new feature, it's just bringing two Google products together. Real-time results, which show up occasionally on the main search engine and have their dedicated section, now show up in Social Search as well. Merging the two features makes so much sense, it's surprising it took Google so long to do it.
Finally, Google introduced quite an important new product last week, Places Search. As the name would imply, Places Search enables users to find places rather than websites. This makes it easier to find resources, official website, location, contact number, reviews and so on, about a specific place.