A while back a few people spotted that Google had been snapping up some domains around the name of ‘SearchMash‘. It seems Google has developed a unbranded site to test new ideas without their brand factor interfering.

Google’s brand is simply so huge that they need gather as objective data as possible by taking away or at least limiting preconceptions. Web results are presented on the left hand side, while images appear on the right hand side. The serps pretty much seem exactly the same as Google, although there are no ppc adverts.

The ‘About‘ page pretty much sums up the sites purpose -“SearchMash lets you search the internet in new ways. It is constantly evolving as we come up with ideas and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Check out our features page from time to time to see what has changed, and also to tell us which ones are useful to you. Please bear with us when the site is unavailable as we are limiting its use.”

The new search site is definately full of interesting concepts. Danny Sullivan has gone into some detail over at the SEW Blog. Some of the new ideas include a downwards SERP scroll feature when clicking for more results and drag and droppable web results (yes you can make yourself top although the number next to you stays the same).