How to Expand Google’s Universal Search

better-google Back in 2007 Google rolled out a revolutionary feature – Universal Search – that blended listings in its search interface from general “plain” search and video, news, images, local and book search.

To explain it clearer, Google tries to guess what other type of information the surfer would also like see based on his or her search query. For example, for “Britney Spears” you’ll see images and videos blended within the search interface and for “downtown Los Angeles” you’ll get local search results (i.e. maps.google.com).

The idea of pulling more data by one-click searching can be expanded. You do not have to limit yourself to the Google search engine only. This time I am listing a few cool FireFox addons that show you more relevant information based on your search query and provides you with more opportunities to browse through.

Add Multiple Search Engines to Google Search Interface

WebMynd offers to search a wealth of search platforms simultaneously with your Google search, by default: Twitter Search, Amazon, YouTube; but you can also add numerous other search options (e.g. Flickr, Wikipedia, Digg, LinkedIn, CNN, etc). The search results will appear right on Google’s results page in the right sidebar:

WebMynd

Additional great features of the page:

  • send Tweets directly from your search results asking your friends advice related to your search;
  • user-friendly interface: add/hide engines with one click, drag-and-drop ordering of pages.

Integrate Amazon.com and eBay Search:

GoogAzon adds the first ten search results from Amazon and eBay in a collapsed orange bar to the top of your Google results page (works also for Yahoo or MSN / Live search). The results include the title, price, and a mouse-over thumbnail image.

You can also quickly share the results with friends and access the actual Amazon / eBay search results.

google amazon ebay

Add Reference Information

Google Search Sidebar for FF3 (Greasemonkey plugin) adds relevant results from Wikipedia and Dictionary.com (as well as Flickr, and YouTube) :

google sidebar

See Your Browsing History

Infoaxe is a browser addon (both FireFox and Internet Explorer versions available) that will show your browsing history results based on your Google search term.

Infoaxe

Note: it requires registration and access to your private data, i.e. browsing history.

See What Your Facebook Friends Have to Say:

SideStripe offers a handy Google Gadget that integrates with the Google search results page and searches your friends list for your search query.

The tool offers some more functionality (e.g. it invites you to ask your friends’ opinion on what you are searching) but I didn’t invite my friends to use the application, so I can’t say if it works. The search functionality works pretty well though:

SideStripe

Would you like to add more searching functionality or do you think “plain” Google is all you need? Do you use any tools that make Google better? Share your thoughts!

Tagged: • • • • • • • •

Ann Smarty

Ann Smarty is an SEO Consultant, Internet marketing blogger and active social media user. Please follow Ann on Twitter as seosmarty

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  • http://webusabilityhelp.blogspot.com Sam

    Nice list :)

    I am always following for latest post from your side.

    Nice post

    • http://www.myworldtoday.co.cc Worldly News

      That’s pretty cool I like the wikipedia one.

  • http://sem-group.net Gerald Weber

    Yet another cool list of useful tools by Ann Smarty. I installed the webmynd one just now. Seems pretty cool. I especially like the Twitter search feature.

  • http://www.bigstarideas.com bigstarideas

    Great article. With more and more websites coming under control maybe we can still imagine the days when a, dare I say, Web 3.0 world comes to light?

  • R3ap3R

    Welcome to the front page of Digg :)

  • http://mayavi.info/ Ranjeet Walunj

    How I wish I knew bout this plugin earlier …

    I installed Mark’s (@mthacks) greasemonkey script to have twitter search alongside my google search..
    my experience with that script: Here

    This plugin would have certainly helped … thanks for the info

  • http://www.search1x.com Felix

    Great right up! Can I add another where you can add Twitter search results in your Google search results for some surprising interesting results!

    http://www.search1x.com/2009/03/01/twittertweetfriendfeedmicrobloggingrealtime-searchconversational-searchbacktype/

    • http://www.seosmarty.com/ Ann Smarty

      Thanks, Felix, I’ll check it out.

  • http://www.lucafiligheddu.com luca Filigheddu

    Very interesting recommendations. I wonder whether homepages still make sense in the era of Google… We want to get straight to the content we are interested in and not loosing time: http://tinyurl.com/ck2zzs

  • http://romancoinsforsale.com/ Romain Coins

    This is cool but what is the connection between twitter and google? I didnt know there was a partnership between them.

    • http://www.seosmarty.com/ Ann Smarty

      No connection. It’s a plugin that connects them. In real life they are not connected in any way.