How do you search for something on Google ? Type the keyword, quickly glance at the website URLs of top 10 search results (they're in green color) and then visit the sites which you think are legitimate and not spam.
Here's a better alternative to help you visualize Google search results faster - add corresponding website favicons (those 16x16 pixel images that you normally see in the address bar) next to every search result.
For our example, we googled for ABC News anchor and ex-Rocketboom host - Amanda Congdon - and here's the snapshot from Google search.
Notice that each result has a favicon and if you are an avid surfer, you can easily figure out the destination website without looking at the green URL.
The results are from Wikipedia, ABC News, Blogspot, Rocketboom, Technorati and Forbes in the same order. Most of us can guess the destination from the site icon itself.
To automatically add these favicons to Google search results, just grab either the CustomizeGoogle or Google Icon extension from the Mozilla add-ons website.
Find this article at: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/05/recognize-websites-in-google-search.html
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Hi Amit,
This one is really cool plugin. One thing I noticed that favicon comes little slow. May be because I don't have it in my browser cache.
If the search result returns totally new websites then for showing one page of result, it will make 10 calls to respective sites to get the favicons. Not bad for the high speed connection but may not work well for Modem lines.
- Saket
Written on 16/5/07 12:22 AM
This is indeed a neat idea! Of the two extensions mentioned, I would most certainly recommend CustomizeGoogle, as it provides lots of additional features!
Regarding the utility of favicons next to the results, I would have to recommend BetterSearch. It is extenstion that adds thumbnails of the pages next to the results, rather than just the favicons. Also, it works in Google, Yahoo, de.licio.us, and many others.
Check it out:
http://bettersearch.zottmann.org/ or https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/211
Written on 16/5/07 1:20 AM
amazing and useful extension, good for researches.
Written on 16/5/07 10:51 AM
The google preview extension http://ackroyd.de/googlepreview/ for firefox is a way better solution, since most sites don't have an icon.
Written on 16/5/07 12:39 PM
nice post. yes it becomes lesser work.
Written on 16/5/07 6:22 PM
yes its true work becomes lesser by this
Written on 18/5/07 11:21 AM