According to the BBC, the black bar that currently runs horizontally across the top of Google’s homepage will be removed and replaced with a grey logo. When clicked, it will reveal seven services with an option to open a further eight. Experts think this is a way to promote more of the firm’s businesses without making its webpage messy.

At the moment, only few customers are using this revamped interface. Chris Green, principal technology analyst at Davies Murphy Group, stated that the move allowed Google to use icons remaining different from Yahoo, which has a busier design. Google is also making the page look like the Chromebooks operating system: whether customers are using Chromebook or the Google website, the interface remains the same.

Another consequence is that it now takes two clicks to enter services such as Images or News. Mr. Green said that the virtues of minimising the number of clicks have been praised and that this would appear as a retrograde step, but Google thinks that it’s better to have the extra click rather than an unclear page. Moreover, this may carry financial advantage to the corporation, because most users are likely to search directly through the search bar, which helps Google expose more people to advertising.