Chrome Bookmarks Integrate with Google Search

Until recently, Google Bookmarks and Chrome Bookmarks were two separate features that didn't speak the same language. Even if you could save your Chrome bookmarks to a Google account, they weren't saved to Google Bookmarks. For some reason, your bookmarks are available in a special Google Docs folder.

Chrome bookmarks have a web interface, but it's likely that the obvious will happen: Chrome bookmarks could be saved to Google Bookmarks. Jérôme Flipo noticed that the Google Bookmarks OneBox already includes Chrome bookmarks. I've tried to find SmallNetBuilder.com and Google's OneBox returned it even if it was starred in Chrome, not in Google Bookmarks.

No More Starred Results in Google Search

Last year, Google replaced SearchWiki with starred results. You only had to click on a star to bookmark a search result and to quickly find it later.

Unfortunately, this feature is no longer available and you have to find other ways to bookmark search results: bookmarklets, Google Toolbar and other extensions.

A Google employee confirmed this change. "The Star feature no longer exists on Google. The Star function continues to exist through google.com/bookmarks though. Anything you previously starred will show up when you visit bookmarks."


Starred results and SearchWiki were really useful for refinding web pages, but probably not many people used them. These features were a lot more useful than Instant Preview, which is still available.

{ Thanks, Joel. }

Google Bookmarks Import Without Using Google Toolbar

I really don't understand why Google didn't add a feature that lets you upload a bookmarks file exported by your browser to Google Bookmarks. Google still recommends to install Google Toolbar in Internet Explorer or Firefox to upload bookmarks, but this shouldn't be necessary. That's like installing Picasa to upload your photos to Picasa Web Albums.

Fortunately, Mihai Parparita built a tool for exporting your Delicious bookmarks to Google Bookmarks and it can be used to upload any bookmarks file to Google Bookmarks. Here's how to do that:

1. Go to delicious.com and sign in. If you haven't used Delicious before, you'll sign in using a Yahoo account. If you've previously bookmarked web pages using Delicious, it's probably a good idea to create a new account.

2. Unlike Google Bookmarks, Delicious has a bookmark importing feature. Upload the HTML file exported by your browser and wait until all your bookmarks are imported.


3. Use Delicious to Google Bookmarks to import your bookmarks to Google Bookmarks. You'll end up with two new labels added by the importing/exporting tools: imported and delicious-export.


The nice thing about Mihai Parparita's tool is that it's open source and it can be modified to import HTML bookmarks file.

Find Great Pages Using Google Bookmarks

The only way to share your Google bookmarks is by creating lists. By default, lists are private, but you can share them with other people and make them public. The nice thing about public bookmark lists is that they're searchable and you can find them below your Google Bookmarks search results.

I entered the URL for one of my bookmarks (a JavaScript compressor) and Google returned a list of pages related to web development. I bookmarked some of the pages, but I could also copy the bookmarks to one of my lists.


When I searched for this blog's URL, Google Bookmarks returned a list with useful Google sites and Google-related blogs. I could also enter some keywords in the search box, but the results aren't always relevant.

Mobile Google History and Bookmarks

Google added a link to a mobile version of Google Web History at the bottom of the homepage for iPhone and Android users. The mobile Web History lists the most recent searches, the search results you've clicked on and your bookmarks. You can also remove some of your searches.

There are many missing features: you can't search the history, you can't restrict the queries to image search or Google Maps, you can't search your bookmarks or find bookmarks that have a certain label. Google only shows the most recent 10 bookmarks, which seems an arbitrary limitation. The most interesting feature that's not available in the desktop interface is showing thumbnails next to each web page.

"If you've enabled search history in your account (tap 'Settings' and select 'Save Searches' under 'Search History', then tap 'Save'), the history that you see is a combination of all your searches done while you are signed-in, whether you are searching from a laptop at home, your desktop computer at work, or your phone while on-the-go. Your mobile searches are marked with a little phone icon so you can tell them apart. For websites you've visited while searching on a desktop or laptop, you'll see screenshot thumbnails that can help you recognize and return to the right sites quickly," explains Google.




A quicker way to see your most recent searches is to click on the search box from Google's homepage.


If you don't have an iPhone or an Android phone, here are the links to Google's mobile site: http://www.google.com/m/gp and the mobile Web History: https://www.google.com/m/history?action=gethist.

Google Bookmarks Lists

Google tests a new interface for Google Bookmarks that lets you share your bookmarks.


You can now create bookmark lists and share them with other people. Google says that "lists make it easy to organize and share stuff you find on the web", but the new feature adds what was already available in Google Notebook, a great service that allowed you to create collections of interesting content from the web. Google stopped developing the service, but Google Notebook is still available for the existing users.

"We're working hard to improve Bookmarks and make saving and sharing stuff on the web easier than ever. That's why we've created lists. Like labels, lists let you organize your stuff into categories. But they can do so much more! For example, lists have the smarts to pull the most important information (like maps and reviews) from the sites you care about, and put it in a single place. You can easily see when a site in your list has been updated. Sharing and collaboration is easy, making lists an ideal way to plan a trip, research a purchase, or organize an event," suggests Google.



Here's an example of a public list that shows useful web pages related to Google Bookmarks lists and here's a list of web pages related to Seattle. You can follow a list to be notified by email when the list changes.



The nice thing about Google Bookmarks lists is that you can convert labels to lists. It's easy to add new web pages to a list thanks to the integration with Google Search, Google adds relevant thumbnails and monitors web pages for new content. And if you invite other people to your list, they can add new web pages, reorder the list, add comments and more.

{ via Google Blogoscoped }

Google Replaces SearchWiki with Starred Results

Google removed SearchWiki, the feature that allowed you to customize search results by promoting them, removing them or adding comments below search snippets. SearchWiki cluttered search results and the aggregated results from public SearchWiki pages were rarely useful.

SearchWiki has been replaced with a simple feature that lets you star search results. Click on a star next to a search results and you'll see it in a "starred items" OneBox at the top of the page. Another side effect is that the starred search results are added to Google Bookmarks, so you can quickly find them later. The "starred items" OneBox shows the most relevant bookmarks that match your query and it's the easiest way to search Google Bookmarks.


Those who used SearchWiki to remove search results or to add comments won't lose their changes. "If you previously removed a result, it will remain hidden whenever you do the same search in the future. These hidden results will be listed in a "removed results" section at the bottom of the page," explains Google. There's also a SearchWiki page that lists all your notes.

Even if I didn't like SearchWiki at the beginning, I ended up using this feature a lot. Adding web pages to search results pages and improving the snippets with custom annotations were a great way to refind web pages.

Google Bookmarks Promoted Search Results

If you are logged in to a Google account and you promote a search result using the SearchWiki icons, the web page is automatically saved to Google Bookmarks. For some reason, Google labels the web page using your query, so you'll end up with a long list of labels.


The list of SearchWiki annotations is already available at http://www.google.com/reviews/w, but it's not searchable. Now the list of annotations is more discoverable, but it makes it more difficult to find your bookmarks.

Some users customize Google's results using SearchWiki to associate searches with their favorite web pages. Marissa Mayer said that, on average, "40% of searches on any given day are repeat searches for that user".