Google Links Directly to Content Sections Inside Search Result Snippets

Posted on September 25, 2009 by Michael Fox

Google announced that they have added a new feature to search results. The brief summary in a result may contain links to specific sections of content on the page. This helps get a user directly to the most relevant content faster. For example, if I search for “jquery tabs”, one of my results looks like this:

Clicking “How To…” would take me directly to this portion of the page (http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Tabs#How_to…) instead of the top of the page (http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Tabs). I think that I will enjoy this feature quite a bit, and since most users do not scroll, this should get some dusty content a little bit of fresh attention. Continue reading →

Google’s Custom Search Engine: Unsung Hero of Search Tools

Posted on July 29, 2009 by Michael Fox

Sometimes you want to search for something, but only within a specific set of sites. For example, Smashing Magazine recently posted a list of 45+ Excellent Code Snippet Resources and Repositories. Occasionally, I find myself opening several tabs to search through a few of my favorite sites from this list in hopes that someone else has already figured out the best way to do something; so I decided to make a custom search engine.

Google provides an easy to use tool for building a “customized search engine” that only searches the sites you specify. Google Custom Search may not receive a lot of hype around the internet, but it is a very simple, yet powerful resource. Continue reading →

Fever – My New Favorite RSS Reader

Posted on July 11, 2009 by Michael Fox

I was reading through my RSS feeds a few weeks ago and I came across a few posts referencing Shaun Inman‘s Fever app. I use google reader, but I often try alternatives. NetNewsWire is very powerful and Times looks clean, but neither of them worked for me as well as Google Reader. I decided to take the chance on fever and I haven’t looked back since. Continue reading →