Online Marketing Blog

UPDATE: Google has announced the official rollout of the new design on Google Blog.

Google is a master of innovation in the search space and while they seem to subscribe to Guy Kawasaki’s “release early and release often” new product philosophy, the attention to changing the Google search page is near-holy. Minuscule design changes at even the pixel level are cautious and carefully considered. And rare.

Apparently, Google is testing a redesign and logo which you can see in this home page screen shot:

The logo has changed and the “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky” buttons are blue rather than gray. But the biggest changes are on the search results page. There are three columns rather than two:

When you create a new site design, you should always remember a few key points. If you don’t, not only is it bad for search engines, but also visitors.

1. Consider keeping the same file naming structure so that it will be easier for spiders to re-crawl the new site and peoples bookmarks don’t return 404 error pages.
2. 301 Redirect all old or changed URLs to the new corresponding page.
3. Create 404 error pages so that when errors occur, visitors get a nice message with the site’s look and feel.
4. Look for broken links that may have come up as the site architecture changes a bit.
5. Create a site map for your visitors so if they feel lost, they have a listing of all the pages on the site.