Google extends online search to email

9 Aug 2012, 1:41 pm   -   Source: AAP

Google has begun allowing users to extend online searches to include messages stored in accounts at Web-based email service Gmail.

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Google has started allowing users to extend online searches to include messages stored in accounts at web-based email service Gmail.

"Sometimes the best answer to your question isn't available on the public web -- it may be contained elsewhere, such as in your email," Google search senior vice president Amit Singhal said in a blog post.

"We think you shouldn't have to be your own mini search engine to find the most useful information; it should just work."

Google invited people to visit google.com/experimental/gmailfieldtrial to sign up to take part in the new feature, which was still taking shape.

"We're developing a way to find this information for you that's useful and unobtrusive, and we'd love your feedback," Singhal said.

The trial was limited to English language searches and messages in Gmail accounts.

Enhancements under development include a feature for organising air travel confirmation emails so that a query of "my flights" would serve up results that include a concise list of bookings.

"These are baby steps, but important ones on our way to building the search engine of the future," Singhal said.

Those steps include upgrading Google search to look beyond query words to figure out what people are actually seeking online.

"Knowledge Graph" technology built to recognise people, places or things signified by keywords was extended beyond the United States to every English-speaking country in the world on Wednesday, according to Google.

"The Knowledge Graph is built to understand real things in the world," Google fellow Ben Gomes told AFP when the improvement debuted in May.

For now, users of Google search in English will start seeing boxes on search pages suggesting what they are interested in finding.

Google has refined its algorithm to comb information from databases such as Freebase and Wikipedia to give context to words and then use general search patterns when it comes to what people tend to want, Gomes said.

Google has also added a serendipity factor by surfacing potentially surprising facts.

For example, a search on "Simpsons" cartoon creator Matt Groening resulted in a Knowledge Graph box that noted his parents and sister have the same first names as his well-know fictional characters -- Homer, Marge and Lisa.

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