Google Bookmarks

Google Bookmarks
Type of site
 Social bookmarking
Owner Google
Website www.google.com/bookmarks
Launched October 10, 2005 (2005-10-10)
Current status Active

Google Bookmarks is a free online bookmarking service, available to Google Account holders. It is completely separate from browser-based bookmarking and should not be confused with the Bookmarks function on any popular browser, Google Chrome included. Google Bookmarks was launched on October 10, 2005.[1] It is a cloud-based service that allows users to bookmark webpages and add labels or notes.

Users can access their bookmarks from any browser on any device by signing into their Google account. The online service is designed to store a single user's bookmarks as opposed to social and enterprise online bookmarking services that encourage sharing bookmarks. The bookmarks are searchable, and searches are performed on the full text of the bookmark; including page title, labels and notes.[2]

Google Toolbar has a tool enabling users to easily bookmark pages and access them. Bookmarks can also be created manually from the web interface, or by use of third-party tools such as Firefox extensions created for the purpose of managing the user's Google Bookmarks account[3] and keeping them synchronized to the browser's bookmarks.

Additionally, a simple bookmarklet (JavaScript function) labeled Google Bookmark is at the bottom of the Google Bookmarks page which can be dragged to the toolbar of any browser to make bookmarking more convenient. This opens a window to save the bookmark to Google Bookmarks and add notes and labels. [4]

Although Google Bookmarks is an online service completely separate from the Google Toolbar they seem to have been created at the same time creating some confusion. The only help and feedback links provided on the site for Google Bookmarks lead you to the help system for Google Toolbar. It appears that support for the Google Bookmarks page itself is minimal although the service has operated for many years without major problems.

Partial integration with Google Maps

Google Maps allows logged in users to store location in a variety of ways called "Your Places". Within "Your places", any map location saved as "Starred places" is automatically added as a Google Bookmark as well. If the Google Bookmark is edited through the Google Bookmarks site by adding labels or notes, these are not visible in Google Maps.

Third Party Google Bookmarks Tools

A third party search extension is also available for both Firefox and Chrome which caches Google Bookmarks and performs an extremely fast incremental search as each character is typed leading to more comprehensive search results. Several Android and iOS apps for smart phones are also available such as Gbookmark and Gmarks.

Bugs

The search page that is used to search Google Bookmarks online appears to have a bug related to the age of the recorded bookmarks. Note the identical searches of "magicjack" conducted with the online Google Bookmarks search vs. using the Online Bookmark IncSearch extension. The IncSearch extension correctly finds six old bookmarks saved in 2008 while the online search finds none. By simply editing and saving the first bookmark the online search result now finds one of the six saved bookmarks. The Gbookmark Android app produces similar results proving the bug exists in the online Google Bookmark search. It appears that records stored longer than 1 year without updating are subject to this bug but the records are kept online and can be found by other means.

Google Bookmarks search result compared to Online Bookmark IncSearch of 6 old bookmarks from 2008
Google Bookmarks search result compared to Online Bookmark IncSearch of same 6 bookmarks one of which was recently edited in 2017
Gbookmark for Android similarly finds the same 6 old bookmarks which Google Bookmarks search misses

See also

References

  1. ↑ Google Targets Del.icio.us by Michael Arrington in TechCrunch on October 11, 2005 (retrieved on January 20, 2011)
  2. ↑ Chitu, Alex (3 March 2007). "Google Bookmarks FAQ". Google Operating System. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Official list of add-ons for Firefox
  4. ↑ Alex Chitu, "Useful Google Bookmarklets", Google Operating System
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.