Google has changed the way news report search results are displayed on the desktop by combining multiple results from the same story.
This update is now in effect, and it aligns news results on the desktop with how they appear in Google search on mobile devices.
In the announcement on Twitter, the official @GoogleNews account stated:
“Now, when there are multiple stories relevant to your search, we will organize the results by story, so you can more easily understand the most relevant content, and you can make more informed decisions about the specific articles you want to browse .”
What has changed?
Previously, the hot news section in the desktop version of Google Search was displayed in a carousel format.
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Carousel is a fixture of news results. You can say “headline news carousel” and people will immediately understand what you are referring to.
The search community may have to decide on a new term, because the carousel is now more like a box, where the stories are displayed as different tiles.
For example, Google’s tweets link to search results for the keyword “covid.”
This is how it looks:
Why did Google change the news results on the desktop?
Google provided this explanation on changing the layout of news results on Twitter:
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“This new structure will free up more space for quality content-not just recent reports-and a range of sources, bringing more context and perspective to the news of the day.”
In addition, this change makes news results on the desktop similar to what people are used to seeing in mobile searches.
“We initially launched this new way of viewing news on Google Search on mobile devices in 2019. Now, users who perform desktop searches around the world will get this new experience.”
For more information on Google’s technology used to organize the headlines in search results on mobile and desktop devices, check out my explainer here:
source: Google News on Twitter
Featured image: screenshot from blog.google/products/search, December 2021
