Not many of us are aware of SearchMash but there would be hardly anyone who does not know about Google. It is an irony that Google which is so popular owned SearchMash. However, it was not Google’s intention to popularize SearchMash. Google used SearchMash as a test field to test its search tools and algorithm before it made it live on Google. So SearchMash has remained almost an unknown entity for over two years.
How exactly did Google use SearchMash? It used this unbranded site to test the user interface ideas. SearchMash worked like any other search engines and you could search the web for web pages and images. However, it presented the web results and image results side by side. Web results could be found on the left hand column almost in the same order as Google’s listing. However, it worked little different. The results were numbered and the clicking on the URL did not open the web pages rather it opened a popup box with the following options – open the listing in the current window, in the new window, seem more pages from the website and find similar pages.
Sadly, SearchMash is not online anymore, it has gone the way of the dinosaurs as it reads in the website now. SearchMash did not have Google branding nor did it appear in Google Labs. SearchMash that was introduced by Google in October 2006 was announced to the world one year after its introduction. Interestingly some people preferred SearchMash to Google and were pleased with the way it worked. However, they had to let go of SearchMash.
Google intentionally kept it low about SearchMash and the world knows that if Google ever wanted to make SearchMash popular it would have taken a different road altogether. But the online community is taken aback by this mysterious move of Google’s decision to take off SearchMash. Many are still wondering that why Google which used SearchMash as its playground to test all new features did not use it when it came to SearchWiki, one of its latest launches.
Another question that shrouds people’s mind is that why Google had to discontinue SearchMash. There are lot of speculations about Google’s move. Some feel that Google might re-launch SearchMash in a different form and some feel that it is part of Google’s cost cutting strategy to stop all the researches on its test ground SearchMash. It had to be noted here that Google’s SearchMash was rolled out in Ajax and Flash/Flex version.
The next question that comes to mind is now how will Google test its features and has it launched another similar behind the scenes search engine. Instead of having its attention scattered amongst various applications Google might be thinking of focusing its attention on its core strengths. The discontinuation of SearchMash has certainly made a considerable number of people sad as they have lost their default search engine.