When searching for something online nothing is more annoying than finding old information instead of the latest and freshest news. Today Google announced some updates to its search engine that will help you receive the freshest results possible. Of course all search results will still go through all the normal filtering, but Google will also pass the results through an additional algorithm to show more recent entries higher in the results when necessary.
Google says that this new algorithm will impact about 35 percent of search results, so in theory it should not impact your normal usages too much. One of the examples Google provides is searching for news about the Olympics, the search results will automatically display results to the most recent Olympics. In this case it will show results about the upcoming 2012, or 2016 events instead of who won the 100m sprint in 1992.
One area that will be affected by the change will be when you are searching for recent events or hot topics. For example if you are searching for news on the NBA lockout you will see the most recent news stories, instead of the news announcing the lockout.
Results for regularly recurring events will also be updated to provide the freshest results. This is a great change for sports fans who might have missed the big game, or missed a whole Sunday worth of NFL games. You can now Google NFL scores, and the results will either show the scores from the week before, or you can see the upcoming matchups for the upcoming week of games.
Finally searchers will see a change in how results for frequently updated topics are displayed. For example if you are searching for the latest version of Apple’s iOS you can simply search “iOS review” and the results will show iOS 5 instead of a two year review of iOS 3.
Even though the changes are said to only impact 35 percent of search results it feels as though the impact on those 35 percent will be significant.
