Google wants its search engine to be more visual. The Mountain View company announced changes to its online search platform in line with new internet trends, which are moving content towards something shorter and more visual, like on major social media and entertainment platforms.
During its annual event, Search On, the company showcased new ways to search the web from mobile phones and while the changes are geared towards finding more content, they will also impact how people shop through the platform. .
For this reason, he announced Multisearch, a concept in which text is combined with images to further detail the context of the search. This function will be helped by tools such as Google Lens, which allow you to find products from a photograph and will be available worldwide.
Another of the features that Google Lens will have will be related to local businesses, since it will be possible to take an image of a dish or item and Google will recommend stores near the user where they can buy them; however, this option will initially be available only in the United States in late fall.
The visual takes over the screen
Google knows that internet users are attracted to visual elements. For this reason, in the new versions of its search engine it will enhance this aspect, since it will no longer only show a list of text links, but it will also present more images and informative widgets to have more clues about the searches.
With this dynamic, Google intends that the exploration be one of the secondary effects in the search, because when the changes are implemented, the results to a question will become a way to discover more useful content.
In purchases there will also be modifications for Google. The most significant is that now, when searching for a product, it will only be necessary to add the word “shop” so that the search engine understands that the user wants to buy that product. Initially this option will be available only in English.
Likewise, Maps will also receive significant improvements, because with the new Live View function it will be possible to superimpose arrows on the images of the streets, as well as transport information and points of interest.
In the news, the technology company says that it has broken the language barrier and that a new function will be launched in early 2023 that will provide coverage through automatic translation. In this way, if a person in the United States wants to know how the September 19 earthquake affected Mexico, they will be able to find local content translated into English.
“This feature connects readers seeking international news with relevant local reporting in other languages, giving them access to more comprehensive coverage on the ground and making new global perspectives available,” wrote Lauren Clark, product manager at Google. Search, and Itamar Snir, product manager for Google News.
The changes do not only respond to TikTok
In July, a report was published mentioning that generation Z went to TikTok and Instagram to search for topics that interest them, which had an impact on the Google search engine, since even the company’s vice president, Prabhakar Raghavan, accepted that the mentality of these users is not the one they were used to.
And although the modifications are oriented towards the visual aspect, the company also seeks to be a more complete option for all users, even for those who want to generate a conversation in Reddit forums, through new options that lead to threads of those pages.
