Why Has Google Gone Laconic On Me?

UPDATEIt turns out the problem was the Googlepedia extension that was running wild. (It replaces the right half of your search results with the wikipedia entry it thinks is most relevant to your search.) As the author of the extension put it, “Recent changes to Google meant my AdWords removal code also removed website descriptions.” And he kindly provided a fix.

Where oh where have my snippets gone?

All of a sudden, my Google search results have gone all laconic. Instead of the rich snippets and the offer of a cached copy, all I get are one-line links from page titles. I have reproduced this on three computers, attached to two different networks. Search results on the main google, but not on blog search, now look like this:

sample google search results

In contrast, the blog search still works like it used to:

sample blog search results

This is disconcerting and much less useful than what I have become all too accustomed to. Is this an evil beta? A move to force me to sign in and personalize (and be tracked!)? Was there some copyright-based injunction no one told me about? Or is it just a bad day down at the server farm?

Or… is The End of Google as We Know It?

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2 Responses to Why Has Google Gone Laconic On Me?

  1. fiat lux says:

    Google searches chez Lux are coming back looking the way they always do. It’s possible you’re the victim of a usability test of some sort, or random weirdness.

  2. MrRio says:

    The problem is my Googlepedia extension. Sorry! Google changed there DOM slightly. The latest update fixes this.

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