Call me a Pollyanna, but I believe that Google's concern about providing the best search has our best interest at heart. Some folks think that changes in Google's search algorithms are just to keep Internet marketers on their toes... well, that may be a result, which isn't necessarily a bad (or even good) thing. The goal is to make search results more relevant to us, their humble readers.

Two changes in Google's search engine and search results page went into action this week.

First... word associations. Ever get stuck trying to find the best words to use in search phrase? Did you ever notice that Google offers alternate search terms at the bottom of the search results page? Google says that they've enhanced their related terms and alternatives to give you even better suggestions, just in case you haven't found what you're looking for.

Second ... longer snippets. If you type in a search phrase that's longer than three words, Google will return a longer description to help you evaluate that result more easily. In theory, they are providing three (maybe four) lines instead of two. In all of the tests I did, all of the search results were only two lines so apparently this feature isn't either (1) what I expected or (2) being fully implemented yet. I'll keep watching to see if this improves in upcoming weeks.

For all the talk, it doesn't seem like a big difference to me ... yet. I'd love to hear what you think.