Google just announced that it has started to integrate some of the research that makes Google Squared work into its core search engine. When you perform searches that have factual answers like [empire state height], Google will now highlight the answer to this question in the search results. If you are looking for the height of the Empire State Building, for example, the search engine will now display a snippet from the site that highlights the answer to this question.
This is only a small change, but it does mean that users won’t have to click through to the site if they are just looking for a straightforward piece of information like the date of John Lennon’s murder. Microsoft, of course, has made these shortcuts one of the core elements of the search experience on Bing.
Great for Users, But What About the Sites that Supply these Answers?
For users, this is a nice step forward as it makes it easier and faster to get the answer you are looking for. It will, however, be interesting to see how website owners will react to this change. After all, if you don’t need to click through to the site to get the answer, the site that produced the content won’t be able to benefit from Google’s traffic.
Also New: Rich Snippets for Events
In addition to this change, Google also announced that it is introducing rich snippets for events. Rich snippets allow webmasters to annotate their pages with structured data that can then be displayed in the search results. In the case of events, Google could, for example, display upcoming events at a theater or concert hall right on the search results page.
