Google goes for a new look

INTERNET SEARCH GIANT Google has switched the look of its search pages to a more minimalist style.

Google sprung the new look of its search pages on users without notice. The look is a fairly big change with sidebars being moved, more white space, and links to cached versions of pages are gone.

A web search now has more white space between results and the same is true for a news search. The sidebar that used to appear on the left hand side that lets you switch between search categories like images, news and shopping is now horizontally sandwiched between the search bar and search results.

The filter options such as time and relevancy are arrayed horizontally like the sidebar and have been turned into drop down tabs to select the different options. Links are still coloured blue but are now in plain text with no underlining.

We don't have any information on how many users the new look is being trialed on or how long the trial will last. We seem to have varying amounts of it at The INQUIRER with some of us only getting the new look partially. We're pretty sure that's not a glitch in our web browser or a cache effect.

The footer has also been changed with the long standing Goooooooooogle image that went with the page numbers vanishing, leaving just the numbers behind.

The new look is quite different and we're not sure how much we like it. No doubt we'll get used to it quickly, though. Apparently someone at Google has to tweak the design occasionally to justify their stratospheric paychecks. µ