An interesting article appeared in The Telegraph newspaper, a few days ago, about why having too much choice can leave us bewildered and depressed. The article relates to research carried out at Stanford University and can be used broadly across every instance we meet in our day-to-day lives and that includes using search engines.

To quote a piece from the aforementioned article..

People can become paralysed by too much variety and wracked with uncertainty and regret about whether they have made the right decision.

I tend to think, just how do people navigate a Google search result page, nowadays. I see a muddy mess, sometimes, when a certain search query is run. For instance I could get all the following types of results shown on a Google results page against my search query:

• Google Sponsored Links (top and right of the page)
• Google News Listings
• Google Local Business Listings
• Google Live Search Feed
• Google Shopping Listings
• Google Image Results
• Google Organic Listings (normally a maximum of 10)
• Google Blog Listings
• Google Video Listings
• Google Related Search Listings

Have I missed anything? Err, what about the kitchen sink from Google’s cafeteria, why not throw that in as well.

Now, if you think I’m being pedantic, let’s run a search query and see what a typical user might be up against.

Google Sponsored Listings

Google News Listings

Google Organic Listings

Google Live Search & Google Shopping Results

More Organic Listings

Even More Organic and Google Search Related Results

It’s a bit of a pic n’ mix. Don’t get me wrong, I like Google having these Eureka moments – I just wish there was a better structure to the layout in which they displayed on the page.

So, what’s your thoughts. Have Google got it right! Does their Universal buffet of search variety agree with you or are you frustrated by too much choice and yearn for the days when search result pages were easier to navigate and you got what you wanted quicker. I’d love to hear your comments.

Google has launched its first TV advetisment in the States for their Google Chrome Browser. Currently, Chrome has just 1.4% share of the internet browser market, with Internet Explorer still dominating with a whopping 66% then Firefox on 22% and Safari with a reasonable 8%. With Microsoft releasing IE8, its not surprising that Google stepped onto the TV ad platform to invigorate a better browser share.

I have noticed an increased awareness program being used by Google to help promote Chrome. The latest ad I caught online was the one stationed to the right of Sky News’ popular video page, as below highlights…

It does just go to show that offline advertising is still a powerful medium, even for an online based company. At the moment there is no word ‘if or when’ the ads will be shown here in the UK. Here’s the Google Chrome ad that is being viewed by American audiences…

Ok, perhaps I’m showing my ignorance here, I think what’s best to do is play stupid (no change there then ) until someone confirms my inner thoughts on this subject. Yesterday, the 6th of April, I blogged about installing Google Trends on Your Website and when it featured in my iGoogle page it is highlighted by a grey border /outline, as in the image below…

Now, I’m thinking, loosely, that it is either because the post contains a code excerpt, or I have done something at my end to cause this to happen (although, I haven’t the foggiest, what?)

Now, perhaps those that have a deeper knowledge than myself can confirm exactly why the grey border is highlighted. I have never seen it before, again that is not to say it is a brand new feature, just that I haven’t noticed it.

Hopefully, this post will answer my question, someone must have seen this grey border wrapped around an rss post on iGoogle before, surely?

Google Trends is a very clever way to help track how popular or unpopular a person / place / company / whatever is within Google’s Search Engines. Now you can install a Google Trends on your website thanks to this little widget.

So, what do I want to settle upon as my trending topics?

Well being a sports fan I have to include some footie, then move onto Britain’s Got Talent, throw in a social media platform called Tweetur or something and finally an old favourite tv show revisted in film. So, they are as follows :

• Champions League
• Susan Boyle
• Twitter
• Star Trek

Interesting to note that, thankfully Susan Boyle has finally begun to quell and also Twitter on a decline since it peaked in Mid April.

Here’s the code I used:

<iframe src="http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/trends_gadget.xml&amp;source=imag&amp;up_is_init=true&amp;up_cur_term=Champions+League,+Susan+Boyle,+Twitter,+Star+Trek&amp;up_date=mtd&amp;up_region=US" style="border:1px solid #ccc; padding:10px;" width="450" height="250" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

What will you set as your trending topic : PPC ? SEO ? Social Media ? Web Design ? Well lets try it and find out…

Note : If you want to change the trending topics yourself then click the edit button (you can enter upto 5 different subjects on your trends search), if your after a geographic trend – then select your country from the dropdown.

Uses for embedding Google Trends, is an ideal way to back-up data in a post. Show customers visiting an ecommerce store the popular brands or products or just, simply to show off!