Earthquake OneBox in Google Search

If you're in the US and you search for "earthquake" using Google, you'll notice an OneBox that shows a list of recent earthquakes. The data is provided by the US Geological Survey.


Ask.com has a similar direct answer that links to a very nice mashup. There's also a Google Maps mashup that highlights the most recent earthquakes.

{ Thanks, Adam. }

Google Translate OneBox

Google has a new OneBox for quick translations. You can just search for "translate", followed by a word or an expression and the optional "into English". For example, you can search for [translate désormais] and Google shows the entry from an automatically-generated bilingual dictionary.



Unfortunately, you can't use the search box as a shortcut for Google Translate because full texts aren't yet translated. The bilingual dictionary is only available for the following language pairs: English <-> French/Italian/Spanish/Portuguese/German/Russian/Chinese/Korean/Hindi. It's interesting that Google shows results from Google Image Search next to the translations.


{ Merci, TomHTML. }

Report Offensive Google Image OneBoxes

The most unpredictable Google OneBox is definitely the image OneBox. For some queries that are popular in Google Image Search, you'll three image results at the top or at the bottom of the page. In most cases, the images are relevant or at least innocuous, but if you search for Google logo one of the image results is a little bit inappropriate, as Search Engine Land noticed.


In March, Search Engine Roundtable reported an explicit image result displayed when searching for [hot celebrities]. Instead of writing a blog post to complain or sending an email to Matt Cutts, you can now report the offensive images using the small link displayed above the image results.

To disable the image OneBox, you can select "strict filtering" for SafeSearch in Google's preferences, but this also filters web pages that contain explicit text.

Google and Euro 2008

Google shows a special OneBox with the latest results from Euro 2008, the European Football Championship. The OneBox is displayed only if you use the localized Google sites from the participating countries. You can search for [euro 2008] to see the next two matches or [euro 2008 country_name] for the most recent scores.


There's also a page titled 23 days that links to a map of the stadiums and an iGoogle gadget with live results, standings and news.


And if the increasingly frequent Google doodles still mean something to you, the Euro 2008 doodle marked the first day of the championship.

Product Images in Google Shopping OneBox

Google started to display a thumbnail in the Product Search OneBox, as you can see by searching for [usb flash]. The image illustrates the top search result, but links to the list of results. As part of the Universal Search, this OneBox can be displayed at the top of the search results page or at the bottom of the page, depending on its relevance to the query.

Another change is that the OneBox groups identical tech products and shows a range of prices. For queries that include clustered listings, Google no longer shows a link that restricts the results to products that can be bought using Google Checkout.

Here's an old screenshot of the Froogle/Product Search OneBox:

Google OneBox for Premier League (and Other Sports Results)

Football* fans from the UK should rejoice: Google added an OneBox that shows scores and upcoming matches when you search for the name of a team (Arsenal, Manchester United etc). Apparently, Google shows the OneBox only for the US and the UK sites.

EPL Talk wonders if Google pays a fee to display this information, but I wouldn't worry about that. "By law, publishers must pay a license fee to the Football DataCo Limited company that in turns shares the money with the clubs in the Premier League and Football League."


It's interesting to notice that Google SMS and Google's mobile search engine show scores and schedules from NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL, NCAA and from many football championships: Primera División, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 etc.


* Note for the American readers: you may replace "football" with "soccer" in this post.

Google WHOIS OneBox

Google shows a special OneBox when you search for "whois", followed by a domain name: for example, [whois google.com]. The OneBox shows the date when a certain domain was created and date when it will expire. It seems that the only provider of information for this OneBox is Domain Tools.

Google launched a similar feature four years ago, but it was removed really fast because it scraped data from Network Solutions without permission. "Google quietly launched a service allowing visitors to look up data on domain name owners from public databases - collectively known as Whois - run by registrars worldwide. Although largely unpromoted, the service generated enough traffic to surpass Network Solutions' (NSI's) daily Whois use limits, which aim to stop spammers and other undesirables from harvesting information about its customers."

This is not the only direct answer displayed at the top of Google's search results: there are many OneBoxes that show maps, stock quotes, weather information, local time, books, definitions or facts.

{ via Matt Cutts }

Update: after 3 or 4 page views, DomainTools shows this message "You have reached your daily lookup limit as an guest user. Please login or register". Maybe Google should partner with companies that have less restrictions.