Google unveils new look
It's been happening for a while now, Google have been releasing the 'new look' bit by bit and over the last week or so that look has been released, and it seems like a full launch is underway. But why?
The new changes may appear relatively subtle, in true Google style, but as subtle as they may be, they are likely have huge effects on Google's profits and web marketing itself.
As you can see, there is now a left side bar with useful navigation and filtering options.
The design facelift has actually created a cleaner look to the page and seems to draw the eye straight to the paid advertising and search results. Also, you will notice a larger number of results can be seen on screen without scrolling. Showing more results at the top of a page could make a big difference to marketing efforts.
Although at face value this sounds good, effectively Google has added more flexibility and opportunities to bring in new Adwords innovations. For example, recently Google have introduced paid sitelinks on Adwords ads which ultimately increase revenue for Google but reduces the space on a page.
So, is introducing more elements to the page what users really want? Well, if you've noticed the growing popularity of search engine startup DuckDuckGo, then maybe this is what people might really be looking for, which is essentially a simple search engine that just provides results.
DuckDuckGo is not yet any sort of threat to the top search engines, or even the second tier ones for that matter! But it is early days. The site is simple, has less clutter, less spam and less advertising and is increasingly appealing to more and more users. The more Google and other big search engines continue to clutter their pages, the more traffic those simple search engines are likely to receive.
