Google today announced a universal search model that will offer users a more integrated and comprehensive way to search. Now the google search results are showing links to books, blogs, groups, news and images on the top left side.

Google’s vision for universal search is to ultimately search across all its content sources, compare and rank all the information in real time, and deliver a single, integrated set of search results that offers users precisely what they are looking for. Beginning today, the company will incorporate information from a variety of previously separate sources – including videos, images, news, maps, books, and websites – into a single set of results. At first, universal search results may be subtle. Over time users will recognize additional types of content integrated into their search results as the company advances toward delivering a truly comprehensive search experience.

Google also said that navigation features for other google services like gmail, calender, Docs&Spreadsheets and picasa web albums.

Google Experimental:

Google also announced a new experimental version of the search called Google Experimental. Here users can try some latest experiments Goolge is doing with the search pages. There are four versions of the search results pages are available.

One of the first experiments to featured on the site enables users to view their search results on a map or timeline.

Second one includes navigating the search results using keyword shortcuts. This one is really cool and this will be liked by most users.

Third one is left side bar with navigational links

Fourth one is right contextual infomration.

Source: Google Press Release