IndustryMeet Google’s new VP of Search

Meet Google's new VP of Search

Earlier this month the world of search learned of Marissa Mayer‘s move inside Google from the VP of search to the head of Google’s location-based and local services. She had long been in that a role and as one of the more public faces of the company, many were surprised to learn she would be leaving that position.

Udi Manber

But the questions remained: Who would take her place and how would it change search as we know it at Google? The answer to the first question is Udi Manber. Coming to Google from Amazon/A9 four years ago he has over 20 years of experience in the world of search having been chief scientist at Yahoo and a professor at the University of Arizona. He is well published and well respected by his colleagues.

But what does all this mean for the world of search? Clues may lie in an interview he did last October with Bloomberg. In this interview he notes:

“.. for us to improve search, we have to figure out what is missing and why it is not perfect for people. When we suggest an improvement, we need to know whether it’s really an improvement. We have hundreds of engineers and they have great ideas, but a lot of this is kind of intuitive. You may have a great idea and you implement it and it looks good, but it turns out it might hurt more cases than it helps.”

Time will probably be the only real tell for the changes this promotion may bring but it surely doesn’t sound like Google will be slowing down on search innovation anytime soon.

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