• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 12, 2009

Google on Tuesday began supporting two open standards to improve search results that it believes will make the "Internet smarter." It also unveiled a series of new technologies to support people who have become more sophisticated in the way they search the Web.

The news, unveiled Tuesday at the Searchology press conference in Mountain View, Calif., includes a variety of tools that allow people to search and visualize results in different ways. Many of the applications are now available, or will launch later this month.

The tools are intended to solve some of the most difficult tasks on the Web, such as finding recent information or determining the exact Web pages that will satisfy the search -- key themes that emerged from feedback about Universal Search and SearchWiki, according to Marissa Mayer, VP of search product and user experience at Google.

Some of the "really hard unsolved problems" in search range from finding the most relevant information to identifying one type of result or Web page. "One of the hardest problems in computer science is data extraction. Can we look at the unstructured Web and extract values and facts in a meaningful way to present to users?" she says. "Could we help build out research spreadsheets in an automated way?"

Google Squared, available on Google Labs later this month, will enable people to build something similar to a spreadsheet. The unstructured data pulls from searches and is organized by the user. A search for "small dogs" pulls a list of small dogs organized by size, weight and breed. The user can add or delete columns or rows, click on the cell to get more information, and save it to reference the information at another time.

"Not only are we building a square metrics of values -- the Google Squared network Googles our Google search results for all the different values that can populate a table like this," Mayer says. "You can see the automated way computers and algorithms found all the meaningful facts around names, pictures, descriptions, weights and heights around these dogs."

The goal to improve search results prompted Google to adopt RDFs and Microformats markups, but it will require Webmasters to add the tags. It should improve search results by giving engines more information to return queries. For example, the information served up on a mobile phone may render differently if the search engine recognizes the data as a review.

Google Search Options allow people to hone into specific genres and recent information available across the Web. Doing a search on Google's home page reveals a "Show Options" link that provides a set of tools allowing people to slice search results to find specific information. Web pages, news pages and blogs are mixed together. The "Recent Results" option executes a different algorithm that considers both relevancy and recent information. Users also can combine tools and narrow results to the past 24 hours.

Wonder Wheel provides a different way to visualize results. At the center sits the query, surrounded by related topics to create a visual wheel. Links and results appear on the right side of the page. This feature gives Google a means to refine, filter and present the results in a different way. It also provides a space to showcase innovations in search.

Aside from Wonder Wheel, Google also launched Rich Snippets, the black text on a search result page that sits between the blue title link and the green URL. While the information is useful, it's possible to augment the information to help users get a sense of whether the result includes information they need. For example, searching on "Drooling Dog BBQ" returns user reviews.

The technology that makes Rich Snippets possible relies on webmasters to code the text. The search engine reads the HTML tags to display the results. And while the engine reads the coded text, it has not been able to decipher meaning.

Lastly, Google introduced the Android Sky Map application that searches the heavens for stars and constellations. It relies on GPS to create a star map that pinpoints the user's position and location on Earth. Moving the phone, the map adjusts the view of the universe. The app transforms the device into map overlay for the sky. Searching for Mayer's astrological sign Gemini provides a demonstration of search.