Searchology: Google Unveils Universal Search

Google today is releasing new search infrastructure to combine its video, local, book, and images search systems with its text search. Marissa Mayer is describing the new system as I type, but basically it will lead to much more relevant search results.

As an example, searching for the "I Have a Dream" speech will return a Google Video clip of the speech itself, just below the text of the speech.

Google is also adding contextual navigation links (like Ask.com) to let users drill down to a particular type of information like "books" or "blogs."In addition, Google is adding a universal navigation bar across is home page and personal pages to make navigation easier and more consistent.

And there's Google Experimental. Go check it out.

Update: This is going live across Google's data centers throughout the day. So if you don't see the new features now, expect them before tomorrow.