Google has developed plans to reformat search results pages to provide a wider choice of content types.
In the update presented at this year’s Google Search On event, images and videos will be linked directly to the results, not in separate cards or in dedicated boxes.
I’m talking to TechRadar Pro and other press ahead of search engine In 2022, Google Vice President of Engineering Rajan Patel explained that the goal was to “organize results to better reflect the way people research topics.”
In addition to being able to highlight relevant assets in different formats, Google says the update will also mean that results that come lower in the ranking are likely to become more valuable.
“There are so many questions where different outcomes can be useful, and so many ways in which you can branch. That’s why we make it easy to scroll down the page and find the different paths you can take, ”said Patel.
“Traditionally, the human mental model associated with search is that the further you go down the results, the less relevant they are. This is to some extent a feature of the ranking systems and not a bug. But if you think about all the questions without being answered correctly, finding new avenues to investigate can be extremely useful. “
The inevitable change of this magnitude will leave publishers and website owners wondering about the potential impact on their own ranking. In response to a question from TechRadar Pro about the consequences of an SEO in retrospect, Patel echoed a well-known message:
“We believe the most useful content is authentic for users, high-quality and up-to-date. Thanks to these changes, we want to provide more authentic content in a variety of formats. Over time, richer visual content will start to appear in the search engine. “
The update will also affect the way ads are positioned and presented in search results – he added.
“Our goal is to create a consistent search and ad environment. For users, we have one consistent experience across the entire search engine, so if we limited all these changes to just organic results, the experience would not be as consistent. “
When asked to clarify whether Google would introduce multimedia ads to the results paired with the new format, Patel declined to confirm or decline. “We have nothing concrete to announce at the moment, but expect consistency,” he told us.
The new search results pages will hit US users on mobile platforms in the coming months, but in due course the shift will extend to other regions and the Google desktop search engine.