The other Google search site
Google has created a search site without any Google branding to test new features. The site, SearchMash, has a simple blue and white interface with a search bar and an option to click on "popular searches." Once keywords are entered, the results page features links to results running down the left side of the page and the top three image results on the right side.
SearchMash also lets you click on a result and drag and drop it to change the order. Also, when a link is clicked on, the user is offered the option of opening the listings in the current window or a new window, seeing more pages from the Web site or finding similar pages. Additional results are added to the bottom of the original results page by clicking on a "more web pages" link.
With SearchMash, Google "plans to test user interface ideas without Google's brand somehow skewing the tests," Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch.com wrote in a blog posting on Monday. "It's pretty slick."
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor.
