Google began letting people sidestep unwanted websites by eliminating them from internet search results.
“Now there’s yet another way to find more of what you want on Google by blocking the sites you don’t want to see,” Google search quality engineers Amay Champaneria and Beverly Yang said in a blog post.
People who jump back to the Google search results page after checking out a link will have the option of signaling they have no interest in seeing that website suggested in the future.
“Perhaps the result just wasn’t quite right, but sometimes you may dislike the site in general, whether it’s offensive, pornographic or of generally low quality,” the engineers said.
“For times like these, you’ll start seeing a new option to block particular domains from your future search results.”
A small “block” button was added to options listed with search result links.
Blocked domains are associated with people’s Google accounts. Subsequent searches that would have generated the unwanted websites will show instead messages indicating they were blocked.
“We’re adding this feature because we believe giving you control over the results you find will provide an even more personalised and enjoyable experience on Google,” the engineers said. The new feature began rolling out last week for English-language versions of Google.com accessed with the latest Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer web browsing software.
It is to expand soon to other languages and browser software.
Google also announced an upgrade to its popular Google Maps to suggest faster routes to drivers based on real-time traffic conditions.
Google Maps Navigation, released in beta, or test mode, shows various routes along with estimated travel times and uses red, green and yellow color-coding to show how traffic is moving at any given time.
“Before today, Navigation would choose whichever route was fastest, without taking current traffic conditions into account,” Roy Williams, a software engineer with the Google Maps team, said in a blog post.
“It would also generate additional alternate directions, such as the shortest route or one that uses highways instead of side roads.”
But from now on, “our routing algorithms will also apply our knowledge of current and historical traffic to select the fastest route from those alternates,” he said. “Navigation will automatically guide you along the best route given the current traffic conditions.”