Google adds tools to help search users dig deeper

Saying that its users are becoming increasingly sophisticated, Google Inc. today unveiled a list of new search technologies geared to help users 'slice and dice' their Google search results, along with a new tool to help them cull information instead of web pages.

The news came today during an event dubbed Searchology, which was held at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. and streamed across the Internet. A spokesman for Google called the event a "state of the union for search."

"As people get more sophisticated at search they are coming to us to solve more complex problems," said Marissa Mayer, vice president of Google's Search Products, in a blog post. "To stay on top of this, we have spent a lot of time looking at how we can better understand the wide range of information that's on the Web and quickly connect people to just the nuggets they need at that moment. We want to help our users find more useful information, and do more useful things with it."

One of the features announced today is called Search Options, which is a collection of tools designed to let users better "slice and dice" their search results so they can manipulate the information they're getting. Mayer said the tools should help people who struggle with what exactly what query they should pose.

"Let's say you are looking for forum discussions about a specific product, but are most interested in ones that have taken place more recently," she wrote. "That's not an easy query to formulate, but with Search Options you can search for the product's name, apply the option to filter out anything but forum sites, and then apply an option to only see results from the past week."

One Search Options tool is geared to give users more information when they do a search. For instance, instead of just getting results in text form, they could have the search engine return images as well as text.

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