We have recently started redesigning our search and results page. Hurraaaay! To back our design choices, we decided to take a quick look into the current state of the art search engines and mechanisms such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Blekko, Ask, DuckDuckGo and CloudMagic. Besides the obvious (use of sans-serif typefaces such as Helvetica or Arial, in-page search filters and sorting preferences, black text over white background, etc), there seems to be a growing tendency in increasing the width of the results area, putting fixed top bars with search input and improving legibility. On the other hand, only one of the websites seemed to be prepared for multiple screen resolutions, as basically all image result pages were simply too alike.

In regards to aesthetics, most of the websites inherit the graphical language of good  ol’ Google, although there’s one interesting case in which layout design was taken a little bit further: DuckDuckGo‘s semantic experience (e.g. there’s a Meaning of section at the top of the results!) and care with vertical rhythm are quite impressive. Hats off, DuckDuckGo! Here’s a quick preview of our findings:  

Google

• Aligned to the left, about 520px wide
• Uses Arial, sans-serif
• Has sidebar filters
• Has no result options (share, fav, etc)
• Shows ads
• Features ~7 results after hitting the search button

Bing

• Aligned to the left, about 540px wide
• Uses Arial, sans-serif
• Has few filters, on top
• Has no result options (share, fav, etc)
• Shows ads
• Features ~7 results after hitting the search button

Yahoo

• Aligned to the center, about 540px wide
• Uses Arial, sans-serif
• Has few sidebar filters, on top as well
• Has no result options (share, fav, etc)
• Shows ads
• Features ~7 results after hitting the search button

Ask

• Aligned to the left, about 700px wide
• Uses Helvetica, sans-serif
• Has no sidebar filters
• Has no result options (share, fav, etc)
• Shows ads
• Features ~8 results after hitting the search button

Blekko

• Aligned to the left, about 675px wide
• Uses Arial, sans-serif
• Has sidebar filters, both sides
• Has no result options (share, fav, etc)
• Shows ads
• Features ~7 results after hitting the search button

DuckDuckGo

• Aligned to the center, about 660px wide
• Uses Helvetica, sans-serif
• Has few filters, on search input
• Has no result options (share, fav, etc)
• Shows ads
• Features ~7 results after hitting the search button
• Responsive

CloudMagic

• Aligned to the center, about 510px wide
• Uses Tahoma, sans-serif
• Has sidebar filters
• Has no result options (share, fav, etc)
• Doesn’t show ads
• Features ~7 results after hitting the search button