Google’s New Search & Discover: Collapsible Ads, AI Upgrades
▼ Summary
– Google is introducing new AI-powered features and navigation improvements to its Search and Discover pages, including the ability to collapse ads.
– Users can now tap “Hide sponsored results” to collapse ads at the top of search results, but the “Sponsored Results” label remains visible as you scroll.
– The “Sponsored results” header can appear above and below AI Overviews and at the bottom of the page, with all text ads grouped under this label.
– Google is adding a “What’s New” button for sports searches in the U.S. to display trending updates and news articles.
– The Discover feed on mobile is rolling out an AI-powered feature in the U.S., South Korea, and India to show short previews of trending topics that can be expanded for more information.
Google is introducing a significant set of updates to its Search and Discover platforms, enhancing user navigation and adding new AI-driven capabilities. One of the most notable changes gives users the ability to collapse advertisements directly from the search results page. This move, while seemingly counterintuitive for a company that relies heavily on ad revenue, aims to improve the overall search experience.
The new “Hide sponsored results” button allows people to remove ads from view with a single tap. Even after being collapsed, the “Sponsored Results” label remains visible at the top of the screen as you scroll. This design choice actually makes the advertising more persistent, as the label follows you down the page. The sponsored header can appear both above and below AI Overviews, the concise, AI-generated summaries that answer queries directly. Additionally, all text ads at the bottom of the page are grouped under this same label and can also be hidden using the same button, helping users focus on organic search results.
Google states that this new layout simplifies navigation back to the top of the page and maintains a consistent ad size, with no more than four text ads shown together at a time. The updated “Sponsored” labeling will also appear in other areas, such as Shopping ads, which will be marked as “Sponsored Products.” These updates are being released for both desktop and mobile users.
Beyond the ad-related changes, Google is rolling out other improvements. For sports-related searches, a new “What’s New” button will surface a feed of trending updates and news articles, making it easier to catch up on the latest developments involving players or teams. This feature will launch in the United States in the coming weeks.
On the mobile front, the Discover feed within the Google app is gaining an AI-powered tool to help users stay informed about trending topics they care about. The feature displays short previews that can be expanded for more detail, along with links to additional content. While designed to offer a broad view of stories from various publishers, this launch coincides with a period where many publishers are experiencing a drop in search traffic, partly due to the rise of AI-generated answers and evolving consumer media habits. This new Discover feature is currently available to users in the U.S., South Korea, and India.
(Source: TechCrunch)
