Google Search is the world’s go-to destination for any question which needs an answer. However, users may sometimes feel like they are at the mercy of the Search algorithms, which determine which result would be the most useful. You could say the same about the Discover feed, which is tailored to your interests, but is still largely algorithm-driven. Google is killing two birds with one stone in its latest Search Labs experiment which allows appending notes to Search results and Discover feed content.
Google’s Search results are quite helpful, but you often need to click on individual links and view the content to determine its usefulness. In a world where web results are SEO optimized to game the system, results seldom focus on providing direct and helpful answers to queries. Google mitigated this problem to a certain extent with theSearch Generative Experience, which uses generative AI like ChatGPT to answer your question concisely, even before you start pursuing individual results.
Other Google platforms like YouTube and the Play Store have dedicated comments sections for user-generated opinions about the content in question. Reputable app feature spotterAssembleDebug on Twitterrecently spotted Google Search adopting a similar approach with an experimental feature. People who opt in forNotesin theSearch Labscan now create and append short notes to individual search results and articles in your Discover feed. Notes can contain text, images, GIFs, and stickers in a very Instagram Story-like screen where you’re able to customize the font, background, etc.
Notes in Search
Google hopes these notes will give Search users a place to share topical expertise about the individual results and links, making the results more useful for everyone. you may add notes, but they won’t show up until they’ve been reviewed to conform to Google’s community guidelines. However, we are instantly inclined to think of Notes as the Search equivalent of reviews on Amazon product pages, which alerts users of the pros and cons of a product. Notes could also help combat misinformation if used properly, much like Twitter’s misinformation labels.
Creating a new note for a search result
However, there’s always a chance that Search users will start valuing Notes over Google’s SEO algorithms, which decide the relevance of results. On the other hand, poor moderation of Notes content at scale could turn them into toxic dumpster fires, a problem YouTube is all too familiar with. For now, Notes in Search are available to a limited audience on the web, the Google app, and the Discover feed. Users in India and the US can try the feature. For now, user reviews for Search results and Discover content seems like just the thing Google needed to add.
Followed Search topics and the new Perspectives filter in action
In a blog post detailing the Notes feature,Google also mentionedother improvements to Search, such as the ability to follow search queries you revisit to convert them into topics for your Discover feed. This feature is only rolling out to users in the US for now. The company is also launching a Perspectives filter for Search, so you only see opinions from other people on social media platforms instead of the usual blog posts and YouTube videos. This should be a nice alternative to appending “Reddit” or “Twitter” at the end of every query.
Thanks:Nick
