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Google doesn’t often tweak the parameters of its search engine, but this time, it did!

Two improvements have been introduced to enhance the relevance and refinement of the information dispensed during searches.

The first, Google says, allows the engine to “better understand associations and concepts related to your search.” The example the company gives is this: “If you search for ‘principles of physics,’ our algorithms understand that “angular momentum,” “special relativity,” “big bang” and “quantum mechanic” are related terms that could help you find what you need. Here’s an example.”

Google says it’s offering the refinements in queries made in all of 37 languages.

The second tweak is probably more usable in day-to-day searches. It allows Google to lengthen the number of words in each “snippet,” or search result, giving the user a bit more information to identify whether the result, or link, will indeed take the searcher where he wants to go.

Again, in Google’s words: “Suppose you were looking for information about Earth’s rotation around the sun, and specifically wanted to know about its tilt and distance from the sun. So you type all of that into Google … a normal-length snippet wouldn’t be able to show you the context for all of those words, but with longer snippets you can be sure that the first result covers all those topics. In addition, the extra line of snippets for the third result shows the word “sun” in context, suggesting that the page doesn’t talk about Earth’s distance from the sun.

I tried out a search for “movies about cowboys and Indians set in the West,” and was rewarded, on the first page, with one high-up result pointing me to a cowboys “play set,” and the fifth result detailing a “cowboys and Indians chess set.”

Try out your favorite long searches, and let us know if the functionality is better.