In a wave of updates, Google aims to launch not one, but three new features to the search results dedicated to Q&A, FAQs, and How-to content. These are some of Google’s most searched results and the upcoming updates sweeten the experience for the end user all the more. Or will they?
These upcoming features were announced by Google’s Gary Illyes at Google Dance event in Singapore.
What are the updates?
From what the first look reveals, one could safely say that Google will be highlighting its Q&A, FAQ and How-to features, with customised results. An example of this could be that the results will now appear at the top of the page, not unlike how the featured bits of search results are displayed.
These new search results appear to occupy most of the screen space, owing to the fact that each result has its own drop-down menu. These could be estimated to end up expanding across multiple screens too. This means that you would need to scroll more to know more, as a considerable amount of your page would be occupied by these enriched search results, which Google expects to be a welcome update soon.
This update aims to put more content out in the search result page itself, saving users the effort of entering the site entirely to know basic information. In case of the Q&A, you happen to see a “more” link, you do not have the full answer, but merely a snippet. The result would be condensed to a bare minimum, as compared to what is shown on the actual webpage.
Data markup and Google
However, one of the biggest questions that stares at Google right in the face is, “will Google render these customised rich results on its own or would Google depend on data markup which site owners implement?
Recently, Google introduced a newer type of data which is structured for marking up tables which are intended to be utilised by news articles and data analysts all across the world. So it is only understood that Google may be deciding to introduce more such types of mark-ups in the future.
Would this update affect publishers?
The ease that came with more content displayed on the search result page was that there was less of a need for end users to click through to the actual page. Bearing that in mind, if results are starting to get structure dependent, then how does it even make it worth implementing?
Considering publishers, if these result types are automatically generated, would publishers be able to opt out of it?
There are many questions owing to the nature of these rich results that are to come into play soon through Google’s search engine result page (SERP). The answers to a lot of these questions would come in when Google’s search results officially go up with these newer updates.
Do let us know how these changes will impact your querying and search marketing behaviour. We would love to hear from you.
