Chicago (IL) – Google has showcased a new set of features dubbed “search options.” The collection of tools reportedly allows users to generate different views by “slicing and dicing” search results.
“Let’s say you are looking for forum discussions about a specific product, but are most interested in ones that have taken place more recently,” Google explained in a blog post. “That’s not an easy query to formulate, but with search options you can search for the product’s name, apply the option to filter out anything but forum sites, and then apply an option to only see results from the past week.”
The search options panel also provides users with the ability to view their results in new ways and includes images as well as text.
“We think of the search options panel as a tool belt that gives you new ways to interact with Google Search, and we plan to fill it with more innovative and useful features in the future,” added Google.
In addition to search options, the company debuted a new “snippet feature” designed to display useful information extracted from web pages. For example, rich snippets resulting from restaurant review searches would likely include average review scores, the number of reviews along with menu prices.
Finally, Google showed off an application named “Squared,” which automatically “fetches and organizes facts from across the Internet” in a spreadsheet-like format.
