Here’s a screenshot of Google’s UK homepage, as seen from most home computers:
And here’s Google’s UK homepage as seen from within our university network:
Notice any difference? (read on if you can’t spot it)
It’s subtle, but on-campus users will see a link to Google Scholar along with the links to Google Groups, News, Froogle and so on. I’m guessing Google thought that this service would be of less interest to most Google users, but those in academia will find it more useful. I’m also guessing it’s based on the IP range used by the client.
(Two minor caveats here: most users won’t see the ‘Desktop’ link either – that’s because I have Google Desktop Search installed, and technically I was outside the university when posting this but was proxying through a university server to get the second screenshot).
February 24, 2006 at 13:00
I expect Google is running a trial. Pretty cool.
February 24, 2006 at 13:14
What Have I Missed?
As I said in my last post, I’ve been away for a week. So I’m about to sum up what I haven’t covered in a few pretty bullet points.
Google has released Google Page Creator in a beta. I can’t join due to heavy demand. Frankly, I …
February 24, 2006 at 16:32
There are tons of secrets unrevealed in Google.
February 24, 2006 at 18:40
I could have sworn I’ve had the Scholar option from google uk (but am not using anything remotely related to an academic server). Just checked and the option’s not on the front page now (but accessible via the “more” link).
February 26, 2006 at 03:07
Hey, Neil. You got linked from Inside Google on the Blog News Channel.
(Also, it looks like your PHP code isn’t getting parsed on a preview. Might want to look into that.)
February 26, 2006 at 09:20
Thanks for that Ciaran – the preview script is Perl so it can’t parse PHP
. I’ve removed the code now so it shouldn’t show anyway.