Google conducted a webinar on June 14, 2011. The event was hosted by Amit Singhal, head of Google’s core ranking team. Other experts also helped us understand better what the search engine giant has been up to lately. Here are the highlights:


Search is about breaking barriers to knowledge. Quest for knowledge is eternal. Desktop search data does not depict this. However, the mobile explosion has proved this. Mobile searches actually increases during the weekend, lunch hour and in the evenings! Unlike desktop searches, with mobile searches there is no summer slump or Christmas break. Mobile searches are outperforming desktop searches. While Google has been obsessed with speed, simplicity has become extremely important for mobile phone searches. Google is continuously customizing its search engine for mobile devices.

For instance, if someone is searching for a restaurant, the top of the screen shows Google Maps. A blue dot depicts where you are and the red tags indicate the restaurants closest to you. The lower segment of your mobile phone shows the search results. As you scroll down, the Map freezes in the top segment and the red tags change to depict the restaurants that are currently appearing in the search results you are viewing.

Google is working on improving its speech enabled searches. Of course, you have voice searches on your mobile phone! How about voice enabled searches on your desktop? YES!!! It is quite amazing! In fact, you can take really hard queries like “Translate in Spanish where can I buy a hamburger”

If you think that is good news… here’s more. Search by images. You can just drag your image to the search box and you will get results! UNBELIEVABLE.

But what is the biggest barrier to knowledge? It is Time. This is where Google Instant comes in. It is now on desktops, mobile devises and tablets. In the coming weeks, Google Instant will be available on image searches. Also, Amit Singhal announced Google Instant Pages. It loads the page almost instantly. It does this by pre-rending the pages based on relevancy of the website to your search (the search phrase that you typed). This will be available on Chrome Beta by the end of this week.