Tag Archives: Google Search

New tools to make your job search simpler

To help the millions of people who turn to Google to start their job search, we worked with leaders across the industry to introduce a new experience earlier this year. Since then, we’ve seen more than 60 percent of employers showing jobs in Search and connected tens of millions of people to new job opportunities.

Now, based on feedback from job seekers, we’re introducing some new features to help make the process more efficient. Directly in Search, you can access salary information for job postings, improved location settings, job application choices, and in a couple of weeks, the ability to save individual jobs.

Salary is an important factor in finding the right job—but by our estimate, this information is missing from over 85 percent of job postings in the U.S. today. So to provide this essential information, we’re showing estimated salary ranges right alongside many jobs, based on the specific job title, location and employer. These are drawn from sources across the web like Glassdoor, PayScale, LinkedIn and more. For those jobs that do have a salary listed, we’ll show a comparison to the estimated range for that job, if available.

Many job seekers tell us they want more control over the geography Google uses to find matching jobs for a search. To help, we’re now adding an easy way for you to tell Google what search area to use when finding jobs that match your query. Just click the “Location” filter, and you’ll see a range of distances, from two miles up to 200 miles or “anywhere” if you’re a bit more flexible. Once you select the distance that works for you, we’ll display postings only from the area you’re interested in—whether that’s walking distance from your home, or across the whole country.

Once you find a job you’re interested in, we want to make it easy for you to apply. However, jobs are often posted in multiple places on the web, and most job seekers have a preference for where they apply. If you’ve already put in the time to build out your professional presence or profile online (on Monster or CareerBuilder, for example), you might prefer to apply to future jobs on that same site. Now when we find the same job in multiple places on the web, we’ll give you a choice of which site you’d like to visit to view the job.

Finally, finding the right job for you can take time. That’s why in a couple of weeks, we’re adding the ability to save jobs right inside Google Search. With a bookmark button alongside each posting, saving is as simple as a single tap. Then that job will appear in your “Saved jobs” tabs on Google, which is accessible across any of your devices.

We all know the job hunt can be stressful, so Google is here to help. We review every piece of feedback we receive (to submit click the “Feedback” button beneath the feature), and we’ll continue to add tools to help make the job search easier for you.

Source: Search

The High Five: Just like the movies—breakfast at Tiffany’s and uniting with wizards

Grab your holiday beverage and check out this week’s trends, with data from the Google News Lab.

It’s that time of year

Starbucks holiday drinks are in full swing (or swig, in this case). People are searching about the “buy one get one free” deal happening this weekend, trying to find out “what drinks are included in the Starbucks BOGO?” and “what time is Starbucks buy one get one free?” Some may be surprised that the fall favorite Pumpkin Spice Latte is missing from the list of most-searched Starbucks drinks this week, which includes hot chocolate, peppermint mocha and flat white.

I’ll take a coffee and a croissant

Starting today, you can actually eat breakfast at Tiffany’s. With the opening of Tiffany and Co.’s “Blue Box Cafe” in New York, people are are searching, “How much would breakfast at Tiffany’s cost,” and “What was Audrey eating in Breakfast at Tiffany’s opening scene?” The most searches are coming from New Yorkers themselves, followed by Holly Golightly fans in New Jersey and Maryland.

Wands Phones at the ready

Where can you find fantastic beasts? In your own backyard (no matter what House you’re in). In 2018 Niantic will debut a Harry Potter augmented reality game called Wizards Unite, in the style of Pokemon Go. The Muggles among us have been searching: “Harry Potter Wizards Unite come out?” and “Is Harry Potter Wizards Unite real?” Harry himself, Hermione Granger and Voldemort were the most-searched characters this week, while Slytherin prevailed over Gryffindor as the most-searched House.

Elle Woods and Rachel Green come together

This week, Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston announced they will co-star in and executive produce a series about the lives of two morning TV anchors. Fans are wondering, “What have Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon been in together?” and “Are Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston friends?” Though this latest venture will be a TV series, people are searching for the actresses’ movies this week too. “Just Go With It” was Jen’s most-searched movie, and Reese’s was “Home Again.”

A Little Bit Country

On Wednesday, country music stars came together for the 51st annual CMA awards. Despite Garth Brooks’s lip-sync snafu, fans remained most interested in the winners (search interest in “CMA Award winners” was 520 percent higher than “CMA lip sync”). The most searches for CMA awards came from Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama; and Taylor Swift, Garth Brooks and Chris Stapleton were the most searched CMA winners.

Source: Search

Learn more about publishers on Google

As tens of thousands of publishers of all sizes push out content every day, chances are you’ve come across a publication you’re not familiar with or one you wanted to learn more about.

To help in this situation, publisher Knowledge Panels on Google will now show the topics the publisher commonly covers, major awards the publisher has won, and claims the publisher has made that have been reviewed by third parties. These additions provide key pieces of information to help you understand the tone, expertise and history of the publisher.

Today’s additions are a further step toward surfacing useful information based on your search query. This access to relevant and additional context can help you learn more about different sources and which you’d like to read. We’ll continue to refine and improve this experience, and look forward to future updates to keep you in the know about areas of interest. If you’d like to learn more about this new feature, please check out our Help Center.

Source: Search

Skip the line: restaurant wait times on Search and Maps

When it comes to a saucy bowl of pasta or a perfectly cooked steak, people are willing to wait in (long) lines for a taste of their favorite comfort foods. Rolling out soon, wait times on Google Search (and coming soon to Maps) shows you the estimated wait at your favorite restaurants. Now you can decide whether that cronut is really worth an hour wait or plan ahead to get your fix at a time when you can avoid a wait entirely.

To see wait times for nearly a million sit-down restaurants around the world that allow walk-ins, just search for the restaurant on Google, open the business listing, and scroll down to the Popular Times section. There you’ll see the estimated wait time at that very moment. And by tapping on any of the hour bars, you’ll see the estimated wait for that time period. You can even scroll left and right to see a summary of each day’s wait times below the hour bars–so you can plan ahead to beat the crowds.

Wait time estimates are based on anonymized historical data, similar to how we compute the previously launched Popular Times and Visit Duration features.

Source: Search

The High Five: searches for New York, and other trending topics of the week

Here are a few of the week’s top search trends, with data from the Google News Lab.

Attack in New York

This week people turned to Google for more information about the New York terrorist attack—carried out by a man from Uzbekistan—that claimed the lives of eight victims. Top questions from people around the U.S. were, “What happened in New York?” “Where was the New York terrorist from?” And “Who died in the NYC attack?” Two of the top questions from New Yorkers themselves were: “How to mark yourself as safe on Facebook” and “Where is Uzbekistan located?”

What’s old is new

Approximately 4,500 years after the Pyramid of Giza was built, scientists have discovered a hidden 100-foot space within the Great Pyramid. People in South Dakota, New Mexico and Montana searched the most about the discovery, with top questions like, “Can you go inside the Great Pyramid?” “Which Pharaoh was the Great Pyramid built for?” and “How did the Egyptians build the pyramids?”

Be Prepared

In the circle of life, classic movies get remade. This week, Disney announced the cast of the new live-action “Lion King” movie, and search interest in “The Lion King” rose 1,700 percent. The most searched “Lion King” cast members were Beyoncé, Donald Glover, John Oliver, Keegan-Michael Key and Seth Rogen, while Simba and Pumbaa were the most searched characters.

Having a cow over emoji

A Twitter debate this week proved that some people have beef with Android’s cheeseburger emoji. People grilled Search with these top questions: “What is wrong with the cheeseburger emoji?” “Why is there a cheeseburger emoji?” and “What is the controversy over the cheeseburger emoji?” For those communicating in non-food emoji, the top searched emoji this week were , and .

A little birdie told us …

“The Lion King” isn’t the only comeback in the news this week. Tiger Woods announced he’s returning to golf following his back fusion surgery later this year. People are more interested in his resurgence than his surgery: search interest in “Tiger Woods return” swung 420 percent higher than “Tiger Woods surgery,” with top questions like “When was Tiger Woods’ last tour victory?” and “How many major championships has Tiger Woods won?”

Source: Search

The High Five: searches for an expanding universe

This week’s trends—with data from Google News Lab–have something for everyone: science experts, history buffs, baseball fans, music aficionados and dog lovers.

Mind-expanding, relatively speaking

Stephen Hawking’s doctoral thesis made news this week (and was searched 1,000 percent more than “Stephen Hawking IQ”) when the Cambridge Library made PDF files of the thesis available for download from its website. The document crashed the university’s open-access repository and led to top searches like, “How many pages is Stephen Hawking’s thesis paper?” “What is in Stephen Hawking’s thesis?” and “How to get a copy of Stephen Hawking’s PhD thesis.”

That’s a big file cabinet

American history buffs and conspiracy theorists alike waited in eager anticipation for yesterday’s release of the JFK Files, a set of more than 2,800 government files about the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy. People wanted to know where the files are, what time they were being released, and where to download them—and “JFK Files” were searched nearly 700 percent more than “JFK assassination.”

Next in the lineup, the World Series

The Los Angeles Dodgers hosted the Houston Astros in the first two games of the World Series this week. The series may be tied, but the Astros were searched 121 percent more than the Dodgers (the most search interest in the Dodgers comes from the West Coast, where as the Astros have the Midwest and East Coast). Here are the top questions that fans threw out there: “Who won game 2 of the World Series?” “How many World Series have the Dodgers won?” and “When was the last time the Astros won the World Series?”

More like Idita-roid

This week, a doping scandal was uncovered at the Iditarod, the world’s most famous dog race which takes place in Alaska. Several dogs tested positive for Tramadol, an opioid pain reliever. In light of the news, people searched to find more about the race itself: “When was the first Iditarod?” “How many dogs run in the Iditarod?” and “Who won the 2017 Iditarod race?” For those looking for non-doping dogs on the internet, the most-searched breeds this week were pit bull, German shepherd, and golden retriever.

Feeling blue, singing the blues

New Orleans jazz musician Fats Domino died earlier this week at the age of 89. Search interest in the musical legend increased nearly 32,000 percent on the day of his death, with top searches like, “How old was Fats Domino?” “How did Fats Domino die?” and “Which songs did Fats Domino sing?” The most searched Fats Domino songs over the past week were “Blueberry Hill,” “Ain’t that a Shame,” and “Blue Monday.”

Source: Search

Making search results more local and relevant

When you’re searching on Google, we aim to provide the most useful results for your query. Today, around one in five searches on Google is related to location, so providing locally relevant search results is an essential part of serving you the most accurate information.

In order to provide this optimal experience, your location determines the country service you receive results for across Google Search and Maps. Historically, these services have been labeled and accessed via country code top level domain names (ccTLD) such as [google.ng for Nigeria] or [google.com.br for Brazil]. You may also have typed in the relevant ccTLD in your browser.

Today, we’ve updated the way we label country services on the mobile web, the Google app for iOS, and desktop Search and Maps. Now the choice of country service will no longer be indicated by domain. Instead, by default, you’ll be served the country service that corresponds to your location. So if you live in Australia, you’ll automatically receive the country service for Australia, but when you travel to New Zealand, your results will switch automatically to the country service for New Zealand. Upon return to Australia, you will seamlessly revert back to the Australian country service.

If for some reason you don't see the right country when you're browsing, you can still go into settings and select the correct country service you want to receive. Typing the relevant ccTLD in your browser will no longer bring you to the various country services—this preference should be managed directly in settings. In addition, at the bottom of the search results page, you can clearly see which country service you are currently using.

It’s important to note that while this update will change the way Google Search and Maps services are labeled, it won’t affect the way these products work, nor will it change how we handle obligations under national law. This update will help ensure that you get the most relevant results based on your location and is consistent with how Google already manages our services across a number of our other platforms, including YouTube, Blogger, Google Earth and Gmail, among others.

We’re confident this change will improve your Search experience, automatically providing you with the most useful information based on your search query and other context, including location.

Source: Search

Building trust online by partnering with the International Fact Checking Network

With so much information available around the clock and across devices, the ability to quickly understand what’s true and what’s false online is increasingly important. That’s why a year ago, we introduced a new feature called the Fact Check tag, as a way to show people when a news publisher or fact check organization has verified or debunked a claim, statistic or statement.

Today, thousands of fact check articles appear on Google in Search results, on Google News, and across the open web. Fact checking articles—when a journalist looks at one single statement or issue and either verifies or debunks it—is important in today's climate because it helps readers better understand viral news stories and relevant issues. That’s why we’re supporting the organizations who do the hard work of fact checking so that we can make it available in Google Search.

Today we’re announcing a new partnership with the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at The Poynter Institute. As a nonpartisan organization, IFCN is committed to promoting excellence in fact checking and building a community of fact checkers around the world. IFCN has developed a widely accepted Code of Principles for fact check organizations. Signatories range from the Associated Press to the Washington Post, PolitiFact and Factcheck.org, to Correctiv (Germany), Aos Fatos (Brazil), and Africa Check.

Our partnership with IFCN will focus on these key areas with a global point of view:

Increasing the number of verified fact checkers through a combination of efforts, ranging from holding global fact check workshops to offering coaching and stipends for new fact checking organizations. Ultimately, these partners can help make sure that the content on Google Search and Google News has been accurately fact checked.
Expanding fact checking to more regions by translating the Code of Principles into ten languages and ensuring credible fact checkers can apply to participate in the IFCN community.
Providing fact-checking tools, at no cost, to the IFCN community. We’ll also offer trainings and access to an engineering time bank. Volunteer engineers will attend the annual Global Fact-Checking Summit to spend a day helping fact checkers develop software solutions to boost their impact or gain other efficiencies.

Through partnerships with organizations like the IFCN, we hope this gives people a better understanding of the information they are about to click on online.

Source: Search

The High Five: this week’s trends have a sweet tooth

A celebrity baby on the way, a sidelined NBA player, and ice cream for dessert: here’s a look at the week’s top-searched trends, with data from the Google News Lab.

Sing us a lullaby, you’re the Piano Man

Search interest in “Billy Joel age” went up nearly 8,000 percent this week after it was announced that the 68-year-old musician and his wife Alexis are expecting a child. Age was top of mind in the other searches as well: people asked “How old is Billy Joel’s wife?” and “How old is Billy Joel’s daughter?” as well as “How many children does Billy Joel have?”

I scream, you scream, we all search for the Museum of Ice Cream

After it it was reported that sprinkles from San Francisco’s Museum of Ice Cream (the interactive, social media-friendly art installation that’s already swept Los Angeles) have been found all around the city, search interest in “Museum of Ice Cream” rose nearly 5,00 percent. People are searching for the scoop: “How much are Museum of Ice Cream tickets?” “Who created the Museum of Ice Cream?” and “How to start something like the Museum of Ice Cream?” (Apparently it takes a lot of sprinkles.) And while we’re dishing out the ice cream trends ... the top-searched types of ice cream this week were “rolled ice cream,” “mochi ice cream,” and “vegan ice cream.”

NBA season tips off

After Boston Celtics forward Gordon Hayward fell to the floor with a fractured tibia and dislocated ankle on Wednesday (the first night of the NBA season), people searched: “How long will Gordon Hayward be out?” “How long does a fractured ankle take to heal?” and “How long is Gordon Hayward’s contract with the Celtics?” After the injury, search interest in Gordon Hayward shot up nearly 52,000 percent—making him the most searched NBA player on opening night (followed by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry).

Let them eat (10-foot) cake

Rapper Gucci Mane had an extravagant wedding this week, and the highlight was a 10-foot-tall $75,000 cake, prompting people to search: “How much was Gucci Mane’s wedding?” “Where was Gucci Mane’s wedding?” and “Who was at Gucci Mane’s wedding?” (Hopefully enough people to eat all that cake.) While the decadent dessert may have raised questions about the rapper’s fortune, interest in “Gucci Mane wedding” was searched 2.5 times more than “Gucci Mane net worth.”

I’m feeling spooky

In the weeks leading up to Halloween, some have existential questions about the holiday (the top searched question was ”Why do people wear costumes for Halloween?”), while others are focused on finding the perfect costume: “What should I be for Halloween?” “How to make a Halloween costume?” and “What is the most popular Halloween costume?” We’ve got the last question covered—Google’s Frightgeist can tell you what people around the country or in your own hometown are searching for this Halloween.

Source: Search

Siempre Selena

My love of music started with Selena Quintanilla. One of my dearest childhood memories is of my mom and I belting her classics like “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” and “Techno Cumbia” in the family van during our annual road trips to Mexico. But Selena’s influence in my life goes so much further than that.

I’m the daughter of a Mexican immigrant single mother and grew up in a small, primarily white town in rural Texas. Selena taught me that being Latina was a powerful thing, and that with hard work and focus, I could do whatever I set my mind to. She showed me that my hybrid cultural identity was a valuable gift I should embrace. Watching her made me proud to be Mexicana.

Today we celebrate Selena’s legacy with a Google Doodle. Set to her iconic song (and my roadtrip favorite jam) “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” today’s Doodle follows Selena’s early life through the milestones that solidify her legacy as “The Queen of Tejano” and one of the most successful and iconic Mexican-American entertainers of all time.

She released “Selena,” her first studio album with Capitol EMI, on this day in 1989. Among many notable accomplishments throughout her career, she consistently stayed at the top of the billboard charts, and won a Grammy for best Mexican-American album of 1993—making her the first female and youngest Tejano artist to win the award. But she was much more than a talented musician and entertainer. A fashionista and trendsetter, she often designed and created entire outfits for her performance wardrobe. In her free time, she was active in community service, and a strong advocate for education.

Above all, Selena is a beacon of inspiration and hope for Latinx, immigrant, and bicultural communities around the globe. By embracing and celebrating all parts of her cultural heritage and persevering in the face of adversity, she forged an emotional connection with millions.

In addition to today’s Doodle, we partnered with the Quintanilla family and The Selena Museum to create a new Google Arts & Culture exhibit in honor of Selena. In the experience, you can tour beautiful high-resolution imagery of some of her most prized possessions, including iconic outfits, her first Grammy, her favorite car, and artwork from her adoring fans. We were also honored to host Suzette Quintanilla, Selena’s sister, for a Talk at Google last week, which you can check out here.

So thank you, Selena, for being a role model and a hero to a little Latina girl in Granbury, TX and to countless others. And thank you for all the inspiration and joy your music and legacy continues to bring to the world.