Google has secretly been working on a
completelynew version of
its search enginein response to increasing
competition from Microsoft's Bing and Facebook's new real-time
search engine.
A large team of developers has produced a new infrastructure to
provide better search services and the company is after feedback
from fellow web developers.
The company said: "For several months, a large team of Googlers
has been working on a secret project: a next-generation
architecture for Google's web search.
"It's the first step in a process that will let us push the
envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and
other dimensions."
The new version looks the same as its current search engine, but
the results of searches differ slightly.
The company is getting ready to release the next-generation
architecture, while Facebook is releasing a real-time search
engine, Microsoft's Bing gains ground and Twitter has becomes a
primary source for searching for breaking news.
Some parts of the system aren't completely finished yet, but the
new Google search preview is available for users to try out. The
company is after feedback on the differences between the old and
new systems.
Google said: "Here's how to give us feedback: do a search and
look on the search results page for a link at the bottom of the
page that says 'Dissatisfied? Help us improve'. Click on that link,
type your feedback in the text box and then include the word
caffeine somewhere in the text box."