Take a look at the new Google UI:
See anything familiar? Inspired by this Inc. Post on Google’s similarity to Yahoo, I compared both search engines’ search results page on one image above, and the results are quite surprising.
Similarities:
- the “Show All” functionality in the upper left corner
- the Related Searches feature (called “something different” on google, ironically)
- Similar number of sponsored links above organic search results – Why the same shade of color? Who copied who first?
- Sponsored links in right hand area
- Link +text color. I understand that Blue links on white background can be more Accessible. But I don’t understand why both chose to use the same green to color the end URL
Differences:
- Interestingly, Yahoo chooses to use bold in different ways, they bold both the exact search terms and the domain name URLs, whereas Google bolds the original search terms and closely associated search terms.
- Yahoo places a version of their suggested searches “Also try:…” above the sponsored results box. I think this is very beneficial for most users, whereas Google has probably more sophisticated search tools, they are somewhat hidden on the left hand side. Need to click on “more search tools” to access them all.
- Others?
These are just a quick comparison, at surface level of these two tools. The overall value that I see from Yahoo’s search is aimed toward the mass market searcher. When my non-technical mother asks what search engine to use, I tell her Yahoo. However, I use google on a daily basis because they gave me powerful search techniques in the late 90′s and I’ve been stuck on them ever since.
