Search feature incorporated into Gmail message toolbar

1st February 2010 by William Hobson

Google continues to expand the visibility of its core search engine as the company quietly incorporates search into the heart of its Gmail service.

TechCrunch reports that the company has built upon the existing Google Labs feature known as ‘Google Search’, which added a search field to the navigation column on the left-hand side of Gmail. The latest iteration of this feature has added a Google icon into the email toolbar itself.

When clicked, this icon opens a search box at the foot of the browser screen which provides universal search results from Google, which appear in a limited menu. This allows users to paste search results and URLs into their emails or Gmail chat.

The company continues to find new ways of expanding its audience for search engine marketing by making the search function increasingly commonplace. In recent years search fields have become incorporated in to practically every internet browser, making use of a search engine instantly accessible without the need to visit the homepage and web portal itself.

Google has arguably benefited the most from this feature; it is the default search provider for Apple’s Safari browser and for several iterations of the FireFox browser. By adding its search function to so many pages, the company is effectively removing the need to install its Toolbar plug-in and making it effortless for users to use the search function. Many people now use search fields as a spellchecker or dictionary. It has also altered the way many people navigate the web, with search now used as a shortcut to specific pages or as an alternative to manually entering a web address.

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