Google has soft-launched a sea of new features including ‘Search Options’ enabling search queries for videos, forums and reviews specifically and filtering search results by time period. If that’s not enough, the new feature also returns related searches done by others and throws up keywords  in a form of a Wonder Wheel.

The benefits of Google Search Options are numerous. For most it could increase findability of forum discussions therefore driving more forum usage. Secondly, it could contribute to the burgeoning of user generated reviews and ratings and make it easy to find best ranked reviews on product and services.

For PRs and brands on the other hand, this could simply spell a new opportunity to listen and track conversations on forums and review sites whilst it could potentially offer new avenues to increase organic traffic.

Further to the point, eConsultancy has a great article in which it explains the implications of these changes for marketers and advertisers, whereas the Telegraph has a slightly user centric write up with a complete howto guide.

Wadds has also written about Google’s decision to ease some of its keyword restrictions.