Google Book Search appears within search results

In an exhausting month for new product launches from Google, the first results of its book scanning project have now started to appear. You may have noticed that at the bottom of the first page of search results on Google can now be seen a link to additional results from the new Google Book Search service, which leads you into a wealth of new information.

Google Book Search presents users with information from scanned book content that publishers have made available to Google. All the content from these books has been indexed and books that match search terms are displayed in a list, with the book jacket and sample text shown.

By clicking the link to the book, you can view a number of pages scanned from the book. However, if books are still under copyright then just a few pages are made available and Google makes it clear that they are trying to provide a sample to encourage users to then buy the book. There are already an impressive array of recent and classic books being included here and the participating publishers must hope that the spin-off will be from the extra book sales – either through the links provided to online stores such as Amazon or WH Smith, or via traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ stores.

There are fewer opportunities here for website owners to gain a marketing advantage, but we’ll be keeping an eye on this service and will report further on any new opportunities or advantages that may arise.

If you’d like to know more about the Google Book Search service, please contact us now for more details.

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