#google-discover

#google-discover

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web. Google is testing an Ask AI Mode anything carousel feature. Bing is testing an updated Copilot product search box. Google Merchant Center allows you to use your own brand name in your short title. Google Discover was showing the publisher's name twice, it was a bug. Plus, I am offline today for Sukkos, so this email was pre-written

Google wrote, they are "updating Discover to make it even easier to find, follow and engage with the content and creators you care about most. From creators to news publishers, Discover will be a more helpful and personalized jumping-off point for exploring the web." In the coming weeks, you'll start to see more types of content in Discover from publishers and creators across the web, such as posts from X and Instagram and YouTube Shorts, with more platforms to come. In our research, people told us they enjoyed seeing a mix of content in Discover, including videos and social posts, in addition to articles.

One thing that the blog post doesn't make clear, though, is whether or not Google will give users any sort of control over what new content types they see from creators on their pages. I, personally, don't really want to see posts from X and other social media networks in Discover, so hopefully we'll be able to turn them off or tune them out somehow if we'd rather stick to websites.

Google Discover may be showing X posts (formerly Twitter tweets) from accounts you follow and not from other accounts that you do not follow. Discover has shown X/Twitter posts for a while now, on occasion, but I didn't know Google could show X posts from only accounts you follow. Gagan Ghorta spotted this and Rajan Patel from Google replied on X saying, "We're experimenting with various approaches to X in Discover."

Google seems to be rolling out Google Discover on desktop, which marks a significant shift in how users will access content.