In Google, does anyone know why search terms disappear when you click on the "news" and "shopping" link?

January 22, 2012 4:46 AM

In Google, does anyone know why search terms disappear when you click on the "news" and "shopping" link on the grey bar but not "images", "videos" or "maps"?

Though it works on the left hand column options, I can't help naturally clicking on the top which takes the user to the main Google News front page and having to rekey the search.

Which isn't the end of everything but still.

Of course the answer might be that its so that user is taken to the Google News front page but perhaps there's a way of changing the functionality which I've missed.

posted by feelinglistless to computers & internet (8 answers total)

Good fuckin' question. I noticed it started a few months back, so I just did a search and here's what came up:

Hi everyone,

First off, we want to thank you for your feedback regarding this particular change in functionality, where clicking the News tab after running a query in Search takes you to a clean News page. As always, we welcome and take user comments very seriously.

Sometimes Google will make smaller changes like this one in preparation for larger improvements to our products further down the line. We appreciate your patience during this process. To help maintain the quality of your Google News experience, we do have a workaround for this issue. Clicking the "News" option on the left side of the search results page will bring you straight to the Google News results for your search. The results should be quite similar to those that appeared previously using the "News" tab at the top of the page.

Best,

Erik and the Google News Team

posted by gman at 5:41 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]

Sorry, yes, I didn't find that in my search. Interesting. Judging by the date it seems to have been before they attempted to bringing in that terrible logo-menu pop-up thingy before removing it a few days later and putting in the grey bar back. I am glad to know it isn't just me.

I wonder if anyone's put together a script to change it back again?
posted by feelinglistless at 6:53 AM on January 22

I think I remember a previous question on AskMeFi about this, and the solution there may have been what "Erik" suggested.
posted by jayder at 7:30 AM on January 22

Judging by the date it seems to have been before they attempted to bringing in that terrible logo-menu pop-up thingy before removing it a few days later and putting in the grey bar back.

They removed it?? I still get that bloody pop-up menu and the terrible Google homepage that is too wide for my netbook screen(!).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:34 AM on January 22

I'm glad you asked about this, because I've clicked on the "News" link post-search a few times, gotten a clean page, and wondered if I was losing my mind.
posted by waldo at 7:35 AM on January 22

Previously.
posted by Dasein at 7:47 AM on January 22

Yes, dasein linked to the thread I remembered.
posted by jayder at 8:10 AM on January 22

This isn't an answer, but although you don't lose search terms when switching between other types of searches, you do lose options. For example advanced search is no longer available images. Filtering images by language is something I was using a lot before they got rid of it.

The general pattern in the changes Google's introduced recently seems to be eliminating features that aren't used much.
posted by nangar at 9:42 AM on January 22