19 June 2005

New Google service searches sites designed for mobile devices

Google Mobile Web Searc

Aiming to make search easier for users on the go, Google released Google Mobile Web Search on Thursday.

Other features on Google’s mobile search include image searching and the ability to search for products and services locally. Google SMS search delivers regular search results to your cellphone in text-based format, but the new service they’ve just rolled out delivers search results specifically from websites formatted for mobile devices.

"Given that a lot of browsing does tend to happen outside the desktop, XHTML is an important new technology," said Deep Nishar, director of wireless product management for Google.

Google Mobile seeks out pages written in extensible HTML (XHTML) which are optimised for mobile internet users with pages designed to be viewed on a phone screen.

The service is accessed via the Google homepage using a standard web browser. Users then type in their search query and select 'Mobile Web (Beta)' as the search option.

Google Mobile automatically translates regular web pages into pages that a phone understands. But, since these formats support different content, the service will vary between phones.

Google web search and image search is available with XHTML and iMode, but users can only conduct a Google web search with wireless mark-up language.