

Google the way it's supposed to be - iamelgringo
http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all

======
Maskawanian
I must be the only one who likes the new Google interface.

~~~
lambda
Am I the only one who's been seeing the new interface for several months now?

I only saw it in one of my browsers, so I figured they were doing a slow
rollout, but it sounds like everyone else has been taken by surprise by the
new interface, while I figured it was public knowledge long ago.

~~~
revaaron
Nope, me too. I've had it for a few weeks. Don't like it much, wastes space,
but it's not the end of the world. Oddly enough, the old look is showing up
for me now- I'd been using the new look in this browser for weeks.

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arihant
I'd be happy with new design if it either hides the sidebar by default or
gives me all the options by default. On most of searches, I see only
'Everything' and 'More' options. I'm already seeing 'Everything' on my search,
what's the point of always showing the bar when I have to click once to see
all options, making it entirely pointless.

------
jedbrown
Does anyone actually direct their browser to "google.com"? I always type the
search query in the address bar, then I only ever see search results.

~~~
nostromo
If you use Chrome, you can easily direct Google to use the old user interface
for search results pages.

Go to preferences -> Default Search -> Manage -> Add a new search engine

The enter this as the search URL
"[http://www.google.com/search?hl=all&q=%s](http://www.google.com/search?hl=all&q=%s)
(enter whatever for name and keyword) and make it the default search engine.

------
dchest
I just use Keyboard Shortcuts experiment
(<http://www.google.com/experimental/>), which hasn't been updated to a new
version. I can't image searching without it.

~~~
adg
Same here. I'm hoping that enough other people are hooked that someone will
create a Firefox extension for it.

~~~
nostrademons
Give it some time. The keyboard shortcuts experiment was disabled because it
didn't work with the new interface and there wasn't time to fix it, but
there's some attention being put into updating it now.

------
pg
Is there a way to generate a url for a particular query? I have a homepage
with a bunch of search boxes.

Incidentally, anyone know if there is a way to generate a url for a Twitter
search? The one I had been using stopped working recently.

~~~
chaosmachine
Like this?

[http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all#hl=all&q=this](http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all#hl=all&q=this)

<http://twitter.com/#search?q=this>

~~~
pg
I'm having trouble making an html form that will generate the request Google
seems to need. Do you know what a form would have to look like?

The Twitter url doesn't work for me, incidentally. I get a Twitter search page
but with no query or search results.

~~~
nostrademons
The only thing Google needs is the q parameter:

[http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com%20g...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com%20google)

You just need a form with action="<http://www.google.com> and a text input of
name "q", assuming you only care about English-only.

~~~
pg
I'm not trying to generate an ordinary Google search. I'm trying to generate
one with the clean search results pages Google had before the redesign, which
you can get from the search page linked to in the OP:

<http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=all>

My question is how to make a web form that produces the same results as the
page above.

~~~
nostrademons
[http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com%20g...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com%20google&hl=all)

i.e. put a hidden input with a hl=all in the form.

(I make no warranties about this hack continuing to work past next week.)

~~~
pg
That works. Thank you so much! What a relief.

    
    
        <form action="http://google.com/search" method=get>
        <input type=text value="" name=q size=30>
        <input type=submit value="Go">
        <input name=hl type=hidden value="all">
        </form>

------
jamesbritt
I like having the option of seeing more recent results, particularly the past
year. The new layout requires more clicking to get that, and I keep forgetting
which of the ambiguously names side menus I need to click to get it.

And I see that clicking on the posted link has now changed the default
appearance of Google every time I use it. :(

------
pavs
Honestly as long as I get my relevant, quick search results I don't really
care that much. Obviously it is also important to have a reasonable UI that
stays out of your search result; none of the design changes that Google have
been through is disruptive enough for me to complain. There might be minor
annoyances, but its still much much better than the second and third best
options out there.

------
barrkel
It's still missing the dictionary links to word meanings for the query on the
results page.

------
jlft
I find the left sidebar annoying and very rarely use it. I wish there was a
feature do enable/disable the sidebar like in the old interface. Other than
this, I love the new visual tweaks.

------
klenwell
I like the design. So let me complain about something else: mailing-
list/forum/newsgroup archivers. For instance, search on a certain type of
error message, which as a developer I frequently do, and the first couple
pages of results are littered with these.

Example:
[http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=python+441+Art...](http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q=python+441+Article+has+no+body)

I wish they would do 2 things:

1\. Make sure the original message -- say from the original mailing list,
newsgroup, or forum -- is listed first. Not necessarily #1, but above all the
scrapers.

2\. Consolidate the archivers (mail-archive.com, derkeiler.com, pubbs.net,
etc.) into a single entry, perhaps with sublistings or something.

Now where's the Google suggestion box?

~~~
nostrademons
<http://www.google.com/quality_form>

But yes, we know. There are Googlers that read HN, you know. :-)

~~~
klenwell
Hmmm. I got a server error. But it sounds like the problem is recognized.
Thanks for the link.

------
growt
I think the one good thing about the google design change is that it may open
the door a little bit for other search engines with different interfaces. The
fact that we all like the old google design so much show how much everyone has
gotten used to it.

~~~
jacquesm
It opens up the door for a competitor with the same design as the old google.

------
percept
Does anybody else consider the new page number highlights less usable and
intuitive than the old ones?

For example, on the old version of the site, navigating to Page 2 highlights
the second 'o' in red, and the number 2 in red.

On the redesigned site the same scenario shows a number 2 with the same color
as the other numbers and bold as its only distinguishing attribute.

At a glance I find it harder to quickly identify the current page, and I
suppose this would give less experienced users even more trouble.

~~~
axod
It'd be interesting to know how many users click past page 1.

My behavior is more usually to look at page 1, and if what I'm looking for
isn't there, adjust the search terms.

I think the new numbers are pretty easy to see though.

~~~
carussell
I have my homepage set to <http://google.com/advanced_search?num=100>. The
num=100 makes the select box default to 100 results per page. I've been using
this for years; I loathe pagination. In the past (let's say the Geocities
era), it wasn't rare for me to click through to pages 2 and 3, even when
showing 100 results per page.

Aside: I _swear_ there used to be an option on the Google home page for a
(possibly very brief) time circa 1999–2000 that allowed you to select the
number of results per page. But the Wayback Machine makes it appear otherwise,
because a cursory glance at the archives shows that the select box only
appeared pre-2000 on google.stanford.edu. But I don't think I ever googled
from that domain. I might be wrong on the last point, though. There's
absolutely no way I'm wrong about the select box appearing on the home page,
though, because the removal of it was the entire reason I began clicking
through to "Advanced Search", so that I could change the value to 100.

------
jdietrich
I don't know if it says something about me or Google's corporate culture, but
I have absolute faith that any change Google make is for the better. After
reading all the "41 shades of blue" type stories, I struggle to believe that
they would implement a change of any significance without very strong data,
let alone a complete redesign of their core product. On an instinctual level,
I feel that if Google's design clashes with my assumptions then my assumptions
are probably wrong.

~~~
jacquesm
I think I agree with you for the most part. I'm giving them the benefit of the
doubt until about 3 months have passed. If after three months I still feel
that they've done something wrong then I'll start to believe it. The reason
why I've listed elsewhere in this thread, when change to something familiar
happens we will have a 'knee jerk' response that is conservative, even if in
the long term we'll change our minds.

------
gokhan
The cursor in the search text box is not vertically centered (Firefox). Can't
take my eyes off whenever I visit the page.

------
poppysan
My only problem is the left justification of search results. On a wide-screen
monitor, it's a little awkward.

------
mmphosis
Quit Safari

Open Terminal

    
    
        cd /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/
    
        cp Safari Safari.bak
    
        perl -pi -e 's/rls=en/hl=all/g' Safari
    
        cd ~/Library/Safari/
    
        mv SearchProviders.plist.signed SearchProviders.plist.signed.bak

------
sachitgupta
Really miss the simplicity of the old Google. Hope they don't go the way of
Yahoo :/

------
redstar504
I don't understand why Google, and many other companies, change things that
aren't broken. First they did it with Youtube, and now with their SERPS. Can
someone explain the point of that? All it does is piss off users.

~~~
tengkahwee
I happen to think that the new YouTube is much more consistent than the one of
the past.

~~~
sesqu
It's consistent, but consistently plastic. I feel like I have no hope of
figuring out how the site works except by trial-and-error, because everything
looks encapsulated in white plastic that might cover what's just underneath.

------
chmike
My gmail address is shown on the top right. Thank you to remind me that I am
tracked, I don't see the connection between the search interface and my gmail
account I created just to pin down my name.

------
iambvk
It would be very nice, if it can be centered vertically too!

------
rortian
When do people here go to the Google home page? I only use Chrome and Opera so
I never need to visit a url to do a web search.

