Google made significant updates in the past week. Among those introduced in the Searchology search summit are Search Options which lets users slice and dice search results based on preferences (how recent are they or what format are they presented), Wonder Wheel which provides graphical illustration of keyword relationships along with their corresponding search results in a flash.

There are also updates that will remain within Google Labs for the time being, and one of them is Google Squared. With this feature, Google fetches information from the web and presents it in squares similar to cells in a spreadsheets. For example, if I search for "wine" Google Squared could display different types of wine (red, white, rice), grape variety (Merlot, Chardonnay), where they are produced (Chile, France), classification (Bordeaux, Chianti), nutritional value, packaging, storage, and many more. Due to the nature of how Google Squared works, conventional SEO can't be applied. Instead a page should contain a good amount of content and can easily be found by Google.

This tool will be Google's bet to face Wolfram Alpha, a computational knowledge search engine that has so far intrigued many, in Google's foray into answering questions rather merely displaying search results.

At the moment, Google Squared is not yet live but it's interesting to know that it currently does what many would understand how it functions: display the squared value of any given number. So if I enter 3, it gives me 9, 16 for 4, and 100 for 10. If I try to game it and enter letter B, it does not display the algebraic expression B squared. Instead it reminds me to enter numbers only... please.

Not quite unique ready yet, as I can do the same routine on any Google search box, but it's still not too bad, considering that this is not the major purpose of Google Squared.