Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is constantly improving the heart of its business—the search engine. In fact, the company improved its search engine with more than 890 updates over the past year alone, according to Amit Singhal, head of the Google Search.
Singhal also emphasized that Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) made big bets on the important areas of the search engine since its initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. He noted that Google’s search engine is significantly better than its version that year.
“Larry has described the perfect search engine as understanding exactly what you mean and giving you back exactly what you want. We’ve made a lot of progress on delivering you the right answers, faster. But we know that we have a long way to go — it’s just the beginning,” said Singhal in a blog post.
Singhal listed the 10 biggest milestone he can think of that were implemented by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) in its effort to enhance its search engine. These improvements include:
- The search engine giant built the Autocomplete to predict the most likely useful words and phrases for people. The tool has the ability to load search results instantly and find the information they want.
- Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) integrated the search engine with Translations. Singhal emphasized that people use Google Translate in 80 languages and it processes more than one billion translations every day.
- Google’s Maps team added the Directions and Traffic feature, which enables people to search the real world and find out the fastest route to avoid traffic or how to get to a place by biking, driving, walking or riding a public transportation.
- Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOG) made it possible to provide different types of results and the most relevant information in various formats through the Universal Search feature.
- The search engine giant Adapted Search to Mobile Devices and new screens to enable users to find information anytime, anywhere on their smartphones of tablets.
- The Voice Search allows people to ask questions and get answers through the Google Search app wherein a user would simply “Okay Google” Will I need an Umbrella tomorrow?, instead of typing [weather Oregon]. According to Singhal, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) spent years of research on speech recognition and natural language understanding. Voice search is currently available in 38 languages.
- The Action feature of the Google Search app enables users to send text, email, or call by just saying “Ok Google” say what you want it to do.
- The search engine’s Knowledge Graph shows how things are connected.
- The Info Just for You enables users to ask the Google Search app to find their personal information saved on Gmail such as flight reservation or appointments, which remains private.
- The Google Search app can provide answers before a user ask. Singhal emphasized that users will get automatic help with everyday tasks in their phone as Google can automatically show their plane, bus and train reservations when needed.
