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Simon Willison’s Weblog

Google cruft

New Google feature: Google Movies. Displays aggregated movie reviews (like Rotten Tomatoes), looks up local movie times based on your zip code saved in Google Local (more evidence of the fabled Google cookie), and even handles recommendations.

The downside is that it’s yet more cruft for the search results page. Here’s a screenshot, with the cruft in red and the actual search results in green:

A screenshot of a Google search for "in good company", showcases how much of the page is now taken up by results from Google news, Google print and Google movies.

Ben Hammersley has more commentary.

Posted 24th February 2005 at 12:34 am

This is Google cruft by Simon Willison, posted on 24th February 2005.

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8 comments

  1. But the 'cruft' only appears when you type the title of a movie (or something very close), so it seems fair enough to me. In fact, I think it's very cool that you can get an instant movie rating just by typing the title into Google.

    Chris Beach - 24th February 2005 01:11 - #

  2. I already learned the hard way that Douglas County seems to be a swath of vacuum according to Google Maps (excepting a certain publication that's been mentioned here a few times I think).

    Little did I expect to see that fact confirmed in a screencap of an actual results page.

    ...Was automatically reminded of a comparable problem experienced by one of Microsoft's services.

    ben - 24th February 2005 02:13 - #

  3. You know, this cruft wouldn't be as bad if it was on the right hand side where all the cruft is supposed to go so we can ignore it.

    Keith Gaughan - 24th February 2005 14:32 - #

  4. this cruft wouldn't be as bad if it was on the right hand side where all the cruft is supposed to go - Keith

    Whose conventions state that this 'is supposed to' go on the right-hand side? Personally I think it's valid where it is. If you search for a movie title or a movie star, then chances are you'll want this info. Sponsored links can stay on the right, but highly relevant, independent info like this ought to take pride of place at the top of the search results.

    Chris Beach - 24th February 2005 17:47 - #

  5. Actually, you can eliminate the cruft almost entirely by using the "movie:" tag -- i.e., "movie: in good company"

    Tom Keays - 7th April 2005 13:23 - #

  6. it's mondocruft because kansas is too far away to drive to see a movie.

    As to GConspiracy, yes, here's more proof. I googled for

    Google ~cruft URLs | URL

    and i yea do i receiveth mostly references to movable type crufty URLs. :-)

    Splib-EvilMode - 23rd July 2005 04:25 - #

  7. uhoh, the encoder ignored the amp

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fnews %3Aalt.fan.mozilla Splib-EvilMode

    there. Uhoh, the amp got converted back to an amp, despite begin within c o d e tags.

    Nevermind all that...

    anti-spam URL-conversion builds it's own cruft: why the sa=D?

    Splib-EvilMode - 23rd July 2005 04:40 - #

  8. <foil meta="hat" bling="tin">Everyone knows the cruft is mostly on the right. Yet google puts a hunka the cruft on top. It's just one more sign of 'the liberool media conspiracy'.</foil> :-)

    splib-SmahtAhz=Mode - 23rd July 2005 04:53 - #

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