Google is rolling out a series of changes to its Search and Discover pages, which the company shared in multiple announcements. This update introduces new AI-powered features to these key destinations, as well as improved navigation and the ability for users to collapse ads in Google Search.
At first, the latter seems like a more surprising change, considering that advertising is Google’s main source of revenue. With this feature, users viewing Google search results will be able to tap a new button, Hide Sponsored Results, to collapse ads at the top of the search results page.
However, while this action will stop ads from appearing on your screen, it will not completely eliminate sponsored results. Instead, Google notes that the “Sponsored Results” label will remain at the top of the screen even if you scroll down. In a way, this makes the ad more visible since it can follow the page even when it’s collapsed.
Additionally, Google says the “Sponsored Results” header can appear above and below AI summaries (short summaries created by AI that appear at the top of search results and provide quick answers). A “Sponsored Results” header for text ads will also appear at the bottom of the page, and all text ads will be grouped under the label. If you want to focus on organic content, you can collapse these using the same (hide sponsored results) button.
Google says the new design will make it easier for users to navigate to the top of the page, keep ads the same size, and prevent users from seeing more than four text ads in a group.
The new “Sponsored” label will also appear elsewhere on Google, such as Shopping ads, and will be branded as “Sponsored Products.”
The update will roll out to desktop and mobile.
The company is also making other changes across Search and Discover. When you search for sports information, such as searching for players or teams, you’ll see a new What’s New button that displays a feed of trending updates and news articles to help you stay on top of the latest news. This will roll out to Google Search in the US in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the Discover feed in the Google app on mobile will introduce AI-powered features to help you understand the trending topics you’re interested in. Here, the app displays a short preview that you can expand to see more information and other links to explore. The company says the feature is designed to help users stay up-to-date with articles from a variety of publishers, but it also comes at a time when publishers are facing a decline in search traffic due to the shift to AI-provided answers and changing consumer media habits.
This latter feature is currently being rolled out to the US, South Korea, and India.
