Google Increases Focus On Realtime With Realtime Search Page

Google has just announced what in my opinion is a pretty huge development in the search scene – a dedicated page to realtime search. Yes you can now access it on www.google.com/realtime (the page is stuck in a 404 loop as I am writing this, but you could try this url to see if you can get a glimpse).

The page, as it looks like at the moment, is the traditional Google search interface except that it doesn’t have the ubiquitous Google Adwords ads on the right. There are three columns with the middle one being updated in realtime from sources like Twitter, Buzz, Facebook and major news sites.

If we take a closer look on the above screenshot, we will find that the left column as the Custom Location box that lets you filter realtime results by location.

On the right, we have got the Top Links section that shows the most mentioned website links around your search query at that time. There’s an All Mentions link below each link that shows you who has tweeted about the link and at what time exactly.

Google Realtime Search page also offers a conversation view to check the conversation around a particular update. You’ll find a Full Conversation link below a result if Google finds a relevant conversation thread leading to that update.

Google Alerts has also been updated to include realtime search. According to Google:

Realtime Search and updates in Google Alerts are available globally in 40 languages, and the geographic refinements and conversations views are available in English, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

So those were the features I could uncover in the first few minutes of trying this new tool by Google. They are currently rolling it out so don’t be surprised if you can’t access the realtime search page. You should be able to use it in some time.

Do try it out and share your experiences in the comments.