But as of this week you also get something new. Google have added a "Show options..." option at the top of the list of results. And there are a heck of a lot of options.
First, videos. Ah, here we go. The entire canon of David Jason's ITV drama-lite series, chopped up into 10 minute chunks and uploaded to YouTube. Lovely jubbly? If you think not, you can drill down further to explore short, medium or long videos (I recognise the bloke at the top of the "short" list), or narrow things down according to how recently the video appeared. I'd never otherwise have discovered diamondgeezer.com's gem-encrusted talking skull (and I rather wish I hadn't).
Thirdly, reviews. This doesn't seem to be working brilliantly, because the number 1 review isn't for diamond rings, it's a review I wrote about the beta version of the BBC iPlayer. Hopelessly out of date by now, but it's easy to amend the list to feature far more recent opinions.
Play around with some of the extra features underneath and you can get ordinary search results but with added photos, or ordinary search results but with longer chunks of text. You can also leap to what Google believe to be related searches (farewell 'diamond geezer', hello 'silly putty'?). Beware, there's no way back.
Then there's the rather flash Wonder Wheel, which is highlighted in multi-coloured type in the hope that you'll definitely click on it. A selection of related searches appears, graphically represented like a spider's legs, and you can click on one to get further related searches, and more, and more. I managed to get from "diamond geezer" to "tom sharpe" in three clicks, but you could go much further.
And finally there's a Timeline option, which in this case allows you to track various diamond geezers through past decades. 1969 turns out to be my post about Victoria line tiles, and 1979 links to my Jubilee lineanniversary month. Clicking on the bar graph at the top of the page allows you zoom in on smaller time periods, right down to a single month. The graph's very informative - spot the chronological difference between, for example, Henry VIII and Susan Boyle.
Suddenly Google Search is a page to play with, and not just a launchpad into other web material. Impressive stuff? Or merely an irrelevant sideshow? You might enjoy playing yourself, purely in the interests of research of course. But don't overlook the terribly useful "Reset options" button at the bottom of the list, otherwise you could end up in a right mess.
