For those of who who haven’t yet noticed, Google has changed the way they display the links to their other properties and search functions. As opposed to the typical row of links across the top of the page, Google has replaced this row with an “Apps” button to the right beside the Sign In link. For comparison, here’s a links to the archives and what it looked like just a few hours ago – Google homepage on archives.org.
The page currently looks like
Which, when you hover over the Apps link to the right becomes.
The push here it is clearly to provide a clear path to their most popular search function but one might notice (maybe) that on the homepage the option to search videos outside of YouTube has been removed (though it does appear to be currently available on the internal search options). I suppose I can’t begrudge them, it’s their site and they have the right to point people to their other properties but do you remember the days when Google was a search engine? Wasn’t that neat?