Google Fading Homepage: Google.com’s Vanishing Act

Google’s homepage design has always been simplistic, and most likely it will always remain so. But this time around Google has something new in store for everyone. Google.com has been experimenting with a new “fade-in” effect on Google.com which hides everything on the homepage excluding the Google Logo and the Search Box. It reveals the rest of the navigation elements with the fade effect only when you move your mouse.

The whole approach seems to focus on the search box. The user can move the mouse to reveal the buttons or press enter to search Google.

Check out the video:

It seems Google is bucket testing multiple versions of this new look for it’s homepage. So not everyone will get to view it, only a small number of random users may get to view it after all. From the initial looks of it and the comments from so many users, it doesn’t seem to be favored by most of them.

So what do you think about it? Let us know!

This post was published by on October 31, 2009

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • himselfe

    Since I have Google as my homepage and thus see it as the first page every time I open my browser, I find disconcerting, and it completely lacks any perceivable benefit.

    I have a natural tendency to move the mouse when I open the browser which causes the links and buttons fade in almost immediately, so it just comes off as some tacky effect somebody learning JavaScript for the first time embellished their page with to show off their new skill.

    Until I read this page I thought the recent Firefox update had somehow broken the Google homepage.

  • http://www.techno-pulse.com/ Basant Singh

    Perhaps with a little inspiration from Bing ;) But Google's simplicity is best…

  • Fakeer

    This is really pushing the limits of minimalism. But surely in the right direction. While googling there's rarely anything else I want to do except search. Google has good has statistics (yea, surprise) on what is clicked on their homepage. Except the 'Google Search' button not much seems to be getting used. Now the 'Enter' key emulates the same thing as the search button so this is a perfect logical step. Note that this does not do anything for the load times since all the frills are loaded anyways but just not displayed. Now, how about shrinking the logo down.

    As an aside, Firfox users can be even more simplistic by completely avoiding the homepage altogether. Just right click in the google search text box – Add a Keyword for this Search – Name it google and for keyword type in the character 'g'. From there onwards instead of typing in google.com in your browser and then the search terms, you can just type 'g searchterm' directly in the URL and go straight to the results.

  • Andy Ellam

    You could have made an anouncment. I was called by one of our users, regarding slow internet connectivity. I had never seen this issue before We tried everything even down to reinstalling explorer. Then i searched on the problem and found out it was Google messing around.
    Andy Ellam

  • Andy Ellam

    You could have made an anouncment. I was called by one of our users, regarding slow internet connectivity. I had never seen this issue before We tried everything even down to reinstalling explorer. Then i searched on the problem and found out it was Google messing around.
    Andy Ellam