Google has lifted the lid on a new version of its search engine, allowing users to look at the results it will generate.
The new engine, available at a separate address, looks the same as the current one but ranks results differently, which could affect businesses who rely on Google results to drive traffic.
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In a blog posting late Monday, Google Inc. says the new engine, code-named “Caffeine,” will be faster, more accurate and more comprehensive.
The public testing of the new engine comes two weeks after Microsoft Corp. struck a deal to replace Yahoo Inc.’s search engine, with its own Google competitor, called Bing. Yahoo Search and Bing are the second and third most popular engines after Google.
In a posting on its web site, Google invited users to give their thoughts on the new search technology:
“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 infrastructure sits ‘under the hood’ of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.”
Not everyone was immediately convinced that the new search engine was all that different, however.
“I did some test searches and didn’t notice the big differences that other users have claimed on Google’s blog to have seen,” technology blogger David Coursey wrote. “If the company wants more meaningful feedback, I’d imagine it would be easy enough to create a search results page that displays results from both Caffeine and today’s production search engine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
