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In what some could construe as a response to Bing, Google for the past few months has been quietly improving its search engine.  There’s nothing you’ll see on the standard Google page, because the updates haven’t been pushed there yet.  Even visiting the site that includes the upgrades you’re not going to see a difference in the overall experience.

All the major differences in Google’s secret sandbox upgrades are under the hood so-to-speak.  The search results are faster than the current Google and are even capable of returning more results in that shorter period of time.  Google’s aiming for more accurate results, which it seems to have in terms of searching current events when compared to the current search.

Google is denying that this has anything to do with Microsoft’s Bing search engine, though it is a bit strange that we haven’t seen anything this big happen to the Google algorithm recently.  Even if Google isn’t worried about Bing, it wouldn’t be surprising if this is an attempt to get back those few percentage points that Bing took from Google.  Sure, Google has plenty percentage points to spare, but with so much money residing in them, why give them up?

Even if the upgrades aren’t directed at Bing as Google says, they’re still noteworthy.  It’s about time Google updated it’s algorithm, especially to include more up-to-date material on breaking news searches.  Perhaps Google will add more interesting features once it becomes happy with developer response to the sandbox.

Read [CNet News]
Read [Google Webmaster Central Blog]