Search giant Google has updated its ‘About This Result’ panel to expand the information shown to searchers about why they are seeing a particular page in their search results.
Prior to the update, the About This Result plan simply told searchers whether the connection of the website was secure, along with some information on the source of the content. The expanded panel, which was released last week, has been introduced to help searchers understand the results they are being shown to assist them in determining which pages may be of most use to them.
Google provided an example of the expanded panel for a search on “how to cook fish in the oven”:
The About This Result panel reveals that the result has been shown because it is written in the same language as the query (English), it’s relevant for searches made in the searcher’s region (the US), it contains four terms from the query (‘oven’, ‘fish’, ‘cook’ and ‘how’), and it contains terms that are relevant to the search (‘baked’, ‘recipe’ and ‘ingredients’).
In another example provided by Google, information on other websites linking to that particular search result is highlighted:
Google has explained that the expansion to the panel will help searchers to find the most relevant results for their searches, and it will also help them to amend their searches to find the most useful results. In its announcement of the update, the search giant explained:
“About This Result will show you tips for how you can get to what you really wanted. For example, you can put quotes around a word or phrase to get results that mention those words exactly, or use a minus sign to exclude certain words from your search.”
Along with the obvious benefits to searchers, the panel will help those with websites to see how Google decided on the relevance of a result for a particular search query – which could then be used to tailor content to make it more useful and relevant for specific searches.
At the moment, the new About This Result panels are available in the US for queries made in English. Of those eligible, the panels are currently being shown to 10% of searchers. In the months to follow, Google has plans to roll out the panel to more searchers, so it shouldn’t be long before we see it make its appearance on our shores.
Creating content that is relevant and answers people’s questions is something we can do for your website here at Engage Web. Get in touch to learn more.
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