Google’s new experiment – keyboard shortcuts

By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Despite all the great things Google has given us over the years, one of the things I have always wanted out of them is keyboard shortcuts.   I love the idea of just being able to navigate up and down the search results page with nothing more than my J, K and enter keys.    Where we’re going, who needs a lousy mouse?

Well now you can do this, thanks to Google Experimental.    You can head on over there and join the keyboard shortcuts experiment and don’t worry, if you decide you don’t like it, you can leave anytime and have your old Google back.   But I love it and I’m sure you will too.

The concept is very simple.   After making your search, just use J and K to go up and down your search results page, and then either O or ‘enter’ to open the result you want.   / puts the cursor in the search box and the ESC key takes the cursor out.   Easy.

I’m sure there are some of you who are wondering why this is useful, but if so, you should try it and see for yourself.   Using keyboard shortcuts (once you have memorized them) utimately saves you time because you don’t have to stop typing to reach for the mouse to click on the desired link.

I really hope this Google feature moves from the experimental section into the permanent one and not into the graveyard where certain products go to die.   I can always hope.