Google is launching its new personal search experience by testing community-sourced search results with a new follow button, personalized rankings, and other new features.
The tech giant seeks to show searchers more information about what they actually care about directly in the search results. This is being done by adding several new features, including search results tailored to users, perspectives results updates, creator snippets, and others.
Google's New Features
Google Search is adding new features, including community-sourced notes for search results and a follow button for certain topics.
The new follow button in Google Search aims to keep users up to date on topics that they want to keep coming to search for. The Senior Director of Engineering at Google Search, Brad Kelle said that the new feature allows searchers to practically subscribe to certain topics where Google can show them the content of that topic.
In order to subscribe, you would have to do a search and when you see the "Follow" button, you need to click on it. Then, Google will tell you that are following that particular topic and you can "look for updates in your home feed and when you revisit this search, as per Search Engine Land.
Additionally, the tech giant will enable notifications that if you are using the Google App, would push new content to you regarding the topic that you followed. Users will always have the option of unfollowing and unsubscribing from topics.
One thing to note is that the new feature does not work for "sensitive" topics and would first launch in the U.S. English search results within the Google App and mobile search results in the following weeks.
Google may also opt to add a section named "News for you" that shows users news topics and new content around the particular topic that they followed. This would include an update on how the perspectives feature works in that section.
There would also be a new "Notes" feature where users can add their own annotations to search results that they find. The experimental feature, which launches on Wednesday, will be an opt-in feature through Search Labs, according to The Verge.
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Adding Personalized Notes
For those who have opted in for the Notes feature, buttons to add and see notes will appear under search results and under articles on Discover in the Google app. Whenever users create a note, they can add creative fonts and images.
Google showed a note for an article about different kinds of frosting that had green text, an image of a cake, and a heart sticker. Also, at the bottom of the note was a link to the article that the note was about.
Google VP Cathy Edwards said during an interview that if users post a note, it should show up "within minutes" unless it is flagged for human review. When users look at all of the notes for a certain link, they will be dynamically ranked based on things such as the user's query and a note's relevance to the content of the page.
The tech giant said that it would be using a "combination of algorithmic protections and human moderation" to ensure that notes are safe, helpful, and relevant. This comes as concerns have risen due to the age of rampant misinformation and trolling, said Edgadget.
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