New Feature - Book Excerpts

print.google.com

[your_store]

This is pretty interesting news following the recent airport and package tracking fuctionality added earlier this week. It seems G is creating an collection of book excerpts to add to their index.

If you click on the first listing in the following SERPS [google.com], you can see the book excerpts in action.

The Googlers seem to be hard at work.

[GoogleGuy]

"The Googlers seem to be hard at work."

Seems like a lot of projects are bearing fruit lately, from stemming/plurals/synonyms to definitions to the deskbar to geosearch to the ability to type packages and similar things into the search box. Sometimes changes are more visible, sometimes they're less visible, but we're always thinking about how to make search better for the user..

[indigojo]

Hey Googleguy how about serving content targeted books along the same lines as adsense ads.

[edited by: indigojo at 9:06 am (utc) on Dec. 17, 2003]

[sharpie_79]

things like ups/fedex number.. etc..
not sure if all this needs to be added to google search..
if i want to search for ups tracking number.. i can go to ups.com..
for book search i can go to amazon.com..
don't need to use google.. get a page hosted on google.. then follow google's link to amazon...
google needs to focus on keep it simple.. search..
lately all these extras... are starting to look like the altavista move from simple search... to trying to be a one stop portal for everything under the sun..
the google search results are getting more cluttered..

[onfire]

GG

Seems like a lot of projects are bearing fruit lately

Or are they all just being rushed out ready for the big fight next year when the SE competition hot's up.

Sometimes changes are more visible, sometimes they're less visible, but we're always thinking about how to make search better for the user

Because i have to say in all honesty, what i have visibly seen so far from Google in the last months has not been better for the users.

However i personally look forward to change, with new ways of working & living etc, but IMO the trick to making changes and winning support for them, is not just by making it visible, but also by being able to demonstrate that its a good change, i.e. the results are instantly noticeable in a positive way not a negative one.

[nutsandbolts]

The real interest is the links to buy the book. They don't seem to be affiliate tracking at this point - Will that change I wonder?

Nice idea, though.

[musicales]

I don't understand how it can claim to use "the same technology we use to evaluate websites" - I thought the original google idea was that a link to a website was a 'vote' etc - these pages are googles own - there's no link to them, so how on earth can it use the same technology?

[superscript]

Google appear to be developing their engine into some sort of universal control panel. An interesting idea, but it could end up looking like MSN. If you could suddenly see 2 years into the future, I bet the Google interface would be virtually unrecognisable with all these bells and whistles attached. Interms of marketing, I think they need to be careful not to lose their 'cool'

[GoogleGuy]

musicales, it's because there's no links to them that you don't see them in search result pages yet. Those pages are scored just like any other page on the web. So far, very few people link to those urls so they don't show up unless you specifically search for them with inurl:. If a lot of people like a particular page and link to it then that page might eventually get enough PageRank to show up.

[dotme]

Yesterday I read a good, interesting article on the new Google services... link is below if I am allowed to post it :-)

[businessweek.com...]

[Hissingsid]

If a lot of people like a particular page and link to it then that page might eventually get enough PageRank to show up.

GoogleGuy

Do I hear confirmation that PageRank is still important?

Best wishes

Sid

[bhartzer]

Interesting...

There was some talk at the Search Engine Strategies Conference last week in Chicago that the major book publishers are going to start offering books online (I heard in PDF format), perhaps in 1Q 2004.

It's great to see this new print.google.com feature.

[plasma]

but we're always thinking about how to make search better for the user

So did I, and I came to the conclusion, that search could be vastly improved by ignoring NOSCRIPT.

This message will self-destruct in ten seconds.

[obli] I only get a "This space intentionally left blank"-Message at print.google.com [/obli]

[jomaxx]

Me too. "This space intentionally left blank"

That famous oxymoron from old military documents and IBM manuals.

[Chndru]

While the service does not index or provide the full text of books, the company said it was talking about the idea of hosting electronic texts for publishers....But Google said Amazon was a partner in its new project, and its results page directed users to the Amazon website.

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

[nutsandbolts]

Google is still assessing how the service might generate income.

Do they mean apart from the Ad Banners at the bottom of the page and (soon to be) affiliate buy the book links at the top? :P

[Chndru]

So far it is possible to search 60,000 titles from several publishers

[newscientist.com...]

Whereas, Amazon has 120,000 fully-indexed books in "Search Inside the Book".