Does Google look weird to you too?

What change?

No, I don’t see anything different.

That’s you not Google.

Weird, no, not exactly, but it is different. It has changed.

The search page changed a few weeks ago when they hid the menu bar at the top until the cursor moved. I guess people didn’t like that because it’s been changed back. I believe the design has also altered subtly as well, in the placement and treatment of the box outlines and maybe something else. There’s a slightly different feel, if it’s not my imagination.

The search results page has certainly changed with the addition of a large panel to the left and the inclusion of images in the results. The position of the Search box has changed and also the placement of the number of search results. Advertising gets more space too.

My guess is that it’s intended to help people narrow their search results without having to understand the tool quite so well. I would prefer to see something like that optional, configurable, or at least not so intrusive. I don’t like the loss of space for actual results. And I doubt that many serious users will, either. It takes away from the focus on results and also means more vertical scrolling because so much horizontal “real estate” is being wasted.

This is what mine looks like now, when i search for “fluther”: image

And if I expand the menu on the left, it looks like this

I didn’t notice anything but my husband did.

More commercialized. As long as a year ago, Google made a shift so that on many searches, lists of links with advertising were the first half dozen search results. I can only guess this isn’t an accident, but a revenue decision driven by who is getting paid for clickthroughs on the ads. Now the have the Adwords results on the right column, and the batch of featured businesses paying to be at the top let in prime real-estate.

But hey, can you name another company that’s gotten so large and profitable based on a business model of giving virtually everything the produce away free?

@Storybooklover Uh oh! Google got into your husband’s head but not yours. :)

Apparently, Google has been testing a new site design to random people in the past couple of months. I haven’t seen the new version yet, but it doesn’t look that much different.

@hannahsugs Mine isn’t like that. I have a “show/hide” option that expands a left hand column, but it does not look all graphical like yours. Also, the toolbar on the top of google.com is still hidden by default on mine. In short, I see how yours has changed, but mines has not…yet…

@VohuManah: Yes! That’s what mine looks like! I guess I’m one of the “special” people who gets to see the new site. Maybe I’ll stop complaining and enjoy my “privilege”?

well, just get used to it?

sometimes changes shows improvement. Try to make it improve then

Yes! I just googled and I don’t like it. It’s too much going on.

I just got the new screen layout too for the first time. I’m withholding judgment till I have a chance to see what the new features let me do.

I don’t really like it… it almost seems as if they’re going back in time with their graphics and layout.