Vivisimo, SnakeT, Ask, Bing and now Google side bar

Vivisimo and SnakeT experimented with it. Bing made it for real. Ask3d proposed it and then left to become more Google like. Now google wants to be similar to Ask3d and Bing. Quoting pandia. Life is a circle. In any case, the Categorized search with automatically generated sidebar proposal was an important part of my Ph.D thesis, back in 2004-2005. This is about being a bit early than others. SnakeT is no longer maintained but still working back from the university days.

"Unlike Bing and Yahoo, Google does not have a permanent left hand sidebar with additional links for more narrow searches. Instead there is a link at the top of the page called “Show options”.

Click on it and Google will add a sidebar which helps you refine your search query. You may, for instance, limit your search to new pages from the last hour.

Search Engine Land reports that Google will change it’s search result pages next year and give them a more coherent look and feel.

Most importantly: It seems the sidebar will become a permanent feature on all search result pages.

The sidebar will include links to Images, News, Books, Maps and “More”, as well as related searches and links that let you limit the search to a specific time period.

Google will give you the alternatives (or “modes”) it thinks is most relevant to your search.

Ask.com launched search result pages like this in 2007. Because of this Ask.com became one of our favorite search engines. Ask later abandoned its “3D” search in order to become more like Google!"