Google’s wonder wheel

Google is making new experiments on their search engine. This experiment allows a restricted set of users to try out new search options amongst which many have been there for some time (timeline, content oriented search, timed-research). But the new experiment also includes the Wonder wheel which allows you to derive from an initial search to possible (understand most queried related subjects) on the subject.

Let’s take an example. Suppose you want to make a search on “Social Networks”.

Submit your search request then click the options link on the page results.

Select then the Wonder wheel option from the Standard view section.

Magic… And there you have your wonder wheel guiding you through further searches

You may then click on any section and navigate through your parent searches

For example click on “Online social networking” and you get this result

This kind of guided search now can be useful if Google could add semantics which would bring a whole lot of new possibilities. This search can be even more enhanced if Google could leverage all the power of its parent services and Google Open Social APIs to suggested targeted results like facebook pages or twitter accounts.

If you want to try out this feature, you can work around the restriction by navigating to http://www.google.com, execute the following javascript into your navigation bar:

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=4a609673baf685b5:TB=2:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1227543998:LM=1233568652:DV=AA:GM=1:IG=3:S=yFGqYec2D7L0wgxW;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

The previous javascript code will create a local cookie on your browser saying that you’re part of the experiment.

There, you will be ready for your search request and the wonder wheel.