Google Makes Modifications to Its Search Engine, Including Search Refinement Bubbles And Enlarged Featured Snippets

Google’s main product has always been its search engine, and while the tech giant has managed to branch out into a wide range of other areas it should still be noted that its search engine is what is enabling the company to earn a massive chunk of the revenue that it needs to survive. Hence, Google is constantly looking for ways to optimize its search engine, and one way in which it is doing this is by looking into refining search queries when possible.

A big part of this involves search refinements which are suggestions that Google gives in order to make it so that you can better reach the results that you are after. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Google might be incorporating search refinement suggestions into its autocomplete feature, as spotted by Shalom Goodman. Some users have reported seeing a few examples of refinement suggestions that are displayed in bubble form, and if you click on these bubbles the suggestions will be added to your query.

This can be great in situations where a particular user might not be aware of what the right kind of terminology would be in order to gain access to search results that would actually be relevant to them.


Previously, refinement suggestions could be seen underneath the search bar, but the fact that Google is incorporating them so heavily into the search bar itself is a strong indication that things are going to become easier for users that struggle with coming up with the correct search terminology. This has the potential to greatly increase the number of searches that people would be capable of taking part in as well.

This isn’t the only change that Google is bringing either. Snippets have been a big part of Google’s search engine results page for quite some time now, and it basically gives you a snippet of a website that has information pertaining to your search query. This allows you to get the required information without having to click away from the search engine results page, and it appears that Google is leaning even more heavily into this now.

This comes from a beta test that some users noted which involved a much wider snippet panel. Previously this panel only spanned the length of the search bar, but now it is going to be much wider than that. One reason for this could be that Google wants to start attracting more attention to snippets, and this is something that could spell a lot of trouble for websites. After all, less users will visit their pages if they can see all they need to in the snippet.

H/T: Barry Schwartz
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