Thanks to one of the readers of this blog, Dave, who pointed out that Google has a patent on the technology that combines a search bar and the address bar of the Browser.
The general langauage of the Patent number 7,401,072 is:
“Methods and systems allow users to enter natural language terms that describe a particular web site into an address field of a browser instead of a formal URL. The terms are evaluated to determine whether they correspond, with a high likelihood, to a particular web site. If so, this web site may be immediately accessed. If not, a list of search results based on the terms may be displayed by the browser.”””
Yesterday people wondered would the move by Google to combine the search bar and address bar be picked up by Firefox and/or Explorer in the future.
This patent might answer that question.
To see the full patent click here nph-parser.
They have a nice priority date on this one. Will make it very difficult–if not impossible–for anyone else to provide this type of functionality without their “approval” ; including Microsoft & Yahoo.
Didn’t AOL do this years ago? I used to buy “keywords” from them that were basically address bar searches. So someone typed in “diet” you could buy the keyword and have it go directly to your site.
B, Most online services had keywords for their business partners like AOL, Compuserve, BTX etc. Realnames did this as well and was initially integrated in search engines and browser.
It’s not quite the same though, since in this case it points to search results, vs. a single business’ site. Well, for now at least.
Let’s see what the outcome to this google patent will be in the next 6 months?
Things will change not the google way
You can modify Firefox to work like this anyway. See this page for instructions:
http://www.liewcf.com/blog/archives/2005/01/modify-firefox-address-bar-search/
It’ll take about thirty seconds. After you do that, you can enter a search in the address bar. However, entering a URL will bring you right to that page. Then you can get rid of the search bar and save space.