To improve the web browsing experience and give users peace of mind while searching on its platform, Google is adding a new informative feature to its search engine. The Mountain View-based giant today announced that users can now bring up an additional info card for almost every website that shows up on the search results. These new cards provide additional information about a website to help users make an informed decision before clicking on it.
Now, as you might know, Google has been improving the search experience for users by adding new features to its search engine frequently. And with this feature, the company aims to help users to get the right information about their search results without having to perform another Google search.
So, with this new update, users on compatible platforms will now see a new three-dot button for every search result. They can tap or click the menu icon to open up a pop-up card. This card will include more information about a website’s source, its content, and its security level to help users decide if they should click or avoid it.
The information about the search results is mostly sourced from Wikipedia. This is because, as per Google, “Wikipedia’s open editing model, which relies on thousands of global volunteers to add content,” provides users with the most up-to-date descriptions of the websites.
So, information about a website includes its Wikipedia descriptions, job listings, and local business listings. Users will also see additional descriptions about how Google sources the information from various websites on the web, or from businesses themselves. Moreover, users will be able to quickly check if a certain website is secure enough based on its HTTPS protocol.
As a result, if a website is unknown to a user, these new info cards will provide the necessary information to users to help them make an informed decision, especially if they are “looking for something important, like health or financial information” on Google.
Now, if a certain website does not have any description on Wikipedia, the company will show users other additional contexts such as when Google first indexed the site or what kind of content it might provide.
The feature is currently rolling out to users in the US and will work on mobile web, desktop, and the Google App on Android. However, it is still in its beta and only works for the English language, as of now.
