Internet forums can be invaluable resources; they’re where experts on all sorts of subjects gather to discuss problems and new developments, or simply make friends. So it’s more than a little important that the Google Groups site now attempts to return search results from all over the Internet.
Searchers are being given the option of looking through either “all groups” or “Google Groups,” with the first alternative selected by default. A couple of Google Groups usually get shown at the top of results pages, and then the rest of the offerings kick in.
Instead of just a standard listing of blue links, the new Google Groups results pages give info about both the number of posts in a thread and the date on which the last post was made. The results are good, too, tending to return answers from authoritative forums in our tests.
On the subject of advancements, Alex Chitu also notes, “It’s interesting to notice that Google’s help forums for different services are moving to a new platform initially created for a Yahoo Answers-like Q&A service. Some of the forums have already migrated (Google Talk, Chrome, AdSense) and the benefits are clear: the new forums clearly delimit answers from questions, answered questions from unanswered questions and they encourage people to answer more questions.”
Google may not be challenging Facebook and MySpace, but it’s definitely getting more social.
