Noticed anything different about your Google results recently? It might be down to the fact that instead of seeing 10 results on the screen, you're now quite probably only seeing 7. I really don't see the point of doing this, although their reasoning is that if the search is specific enough to warrant less results, that's what you'll get. It's yet another example of Google deciding that it knows best. Here's an example searching for CILIP:
If you think that's bad enough, Google would appear to be experimenting with the idea of simply showing up 4 results on a page, as reported by SERoundTable Now, perhaps I'm cynical, but I just don't believe this is Google trying to be helpful - I think it's more to do with the idea that if they show less results per page, we scroll through more pages, and may consequently end up seeing more advertising.
Whatever the reason - it's a poor idea, and I hope that Google comes to their senses quickly!
Have you tried the 'Bing it on' "blind" Bing v Google test? http://www.bingiton.com/Landingpage.aspx?form=&publ=&crea=
Bing claims more people like them than Google...the results I've seen people tweet (including mine) suggest not. Interesting in any case; I prefer Bing's search interface, and their Academic search feature does some really cool things that Scholar doesn't match....but unfortunately on both fronts the results just aren't quite as good.
Posted by: @sjgknight | September 07, 2012 at 03:30 PM