Google Search adds automatic highlights and scrolling to articles
The update will make it easier for users to find relevant information from their searches but could have a negative effect on the advertising market
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Google has updated how its search results work by highlighting its Featured Snippets in articles when they’re shared.
Google’s “Featured Snippets” are the small boxes of information, a few sentences long, that come up when you Google a question with a link to the full article underneath. Now, when you click that article, your browser will automatically scroll to where the highlighted area ends.
The search giant’s Danny Sullivan, who works on Search, said the feature has been done regularly with AMP pages since December 2018, with testing on HTML pages starting last year. It is only over the last week, however, that Google has been using it consistently on HTML pages.
Although it should work on most popular browsers, Google said it may vary based on what your browser can or cannot support.
“There's no markup needed by webmasters to enable a featured snippet [but if] a browser doesn't support the underlying technology needed, or if our systems can't confidently determine exactly where within a page to direct a click, clicking a featured snippet will take a user to the top of the source web page” a Google support page said.
Google also confirmed the update in a tweet.
While this feature update will be useful for those who want to access the news rapidly, it has been suggested that it could have a negative effect on the advertising market.
Brands with adverts near the top of the page might find users’ browsers automatically scrolling past them to get to the highlighted content.
This is not the only update that Google has rolled out recently. The company has also updated its Tabs in Google Chrome in order to facilitate grouping by name, colour, and emoji as well as killing bad adverts which take up too much processing power.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments