Google’s 2nd Site Search Box – some initial views

Had to comment with some initial views and thoughts on the recent roll-out of the “second” search box on some Google results. My initial view is that this could be good for user experience but bad for publishers and potentially even advertisers. Here’s the official Google blog post on this new feature. Search Insider has some good points and so does AdViking that are worth reviewing as well.

I know some publishers and will try to work with them and the AdViking team to see if we can get some real data on what (if any) impact this “search within a search” box is having. If I were an enterprise search vendor (such as FAST or Endeca) or a large publisher who had recently spent time/money etc on site search (especially in ecommerce or travel) this might really piss me off. Apparently site can opt out of this functionality.

I would like to get comments and feedback on metrics we should be trying to track and also any anecdotal info related to this functionality.

Below are some screen grabs of the 2dn search box on The Times Online.