Additional View blogs

Software giant Google has recently released its brand new open source web browser, Chrome. Marketing it as a safer, faster and more stable way of browsing the net than its rivals.

When you first install Chrome you will be impressed at the acres of screen real estate it opens up. You may very well enter an agoraphobic hysteria at all the expansive space if you're accustomed to toolbars making up three-quarters of your screen.

At the same time, in doing away with all the extra toolbars, searchbars and the like, Chrome keeps things simple by integrating almost everything into the address bar. From here you can look up web addresses as usual but also use it to do a Google search or search your history.

One of the major features of Chrome is the development of independent processes for each site tab you have open. What this ultimately means is that if something goes wrong with a web page in one of the tabs you have open it won't trigger the cataclysmic end of the universe. Instead, all that will happen is that individual tab is dropped allowing you to browse as normal (minus the culprit tab).

Google now gives the power to website users to remove bad websites from the search results and reward those they find useful by pushing them up the list for their own search results.

Known as Google searchWiki, Google users will have the power to customise their own search results by deleting, re-ranking and commenting on search results.

For businesses and organisation who are wondering what this will mean for their website, customers who use search are able to remove websites from their own search results if they feel the site isn’t relevant or simply doesn’t come up to scratch. These changes will be remembered by Google and the next time a Google user searches for the same thing their customised search results will be shown.

At the moment Google have announced this service is only available for Google signed in users. If you have signed up for a Google account you can always check by noting if your username is visible in the upper right hand side of your Google page.

Businesses and Organsiations need to take note, because the more users who have a Google account the more important it will be to make sure the initial search results for your website are relevant and correct, and the actual website experience is of great enough value that you will not be deleted or pushed down the list.

Since 2005 AdditionalView has been creating websites which are focused on the user experience. We have shown business and organisations the importance of designing and building websites which are usable, useful and are built on a sound website marketing strategy. This has now become so much more important and to survive website owners really need to step back and get to know their website users.