Google launches Perspectives, About this author and more ways to verify information

Google's new features should give searchers more reason to trust your site, your authors and the content on your pages.

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Google is officially rolling out some new features designed to help searchers better and more easily verify information within the search results.

What’s new. Google is:

  • Rolling out the About this result globally.
  • Launching Perspectives for top stories.
  • Launching About this author.
  • Making it easier to access the About this page feature.

Let’s dig in.

About this result expands globally: The Google About this result feature, which launched in 2021 to help searchers learn more about the sources and sites they see in Google Search, is now expanding to all languages. If you don’t see it yet, you should within the next few days.

By clicking the three dots next to most search results, you can learn more about where the information is coming from and how Google determined it would be useful for a query

Perspectives. Google has been testing Perspectives in Google Search since August 2022 and now it is rolling out in the English US results. The Perspectives carousel will appear below Top Stories and showcase insights from a range of journalists, experts and other relevant voices on the topic you’re searching for.

Here is what it looks like:

Google0 Perspectives

About this author. The About this author will be in the About this result. Now when people tap on the three dots readers will be able to find more information about the background and experience of the news voices surfaced on Google Search, Google explained.

So maybe your authors might matter a bit more with this feature?

Access to About this page. Google also said it is making it easier to access the About this page feature. You can now type in the URL of the organization in Google Search and information from About this page will populate at the top of the Google Search results.

You’ll be able to quickly see how the website describes itself, what others on the web have said about the site and any recent coverage of it.

Here is how it looks:

About This Page 800

Why we care. Google is now surfacing more information about your site and its authors. That makes demonstrating that you’re an authority on the topics you write about even more important. On-page elements like “about this site” statements and author bios have become more important to your Google rankings and user trust in general.

Not only that, Google can surface other perspectives around topics that already are ranking well in top stories, which gives publishers and content creators more visibility within the Google Search results.

Dig deeper. Read Google’s official announcement: Five new ways to verify info with Google Search.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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