Google is testing a new display and user interface for forum content within its search results. “We’re testing a new display for forum content when it appears in search results, allowing people to quickly view top comments and related discussions to help them find useful information and dig deeper,” a Google spokesperson told us.
What is this new display. The new display will highlight the “top comments” on a specific discussion forum thread and then also highlight related discussions on that topic.
Google told us that searchers often want to learn from others’ experiences with a topic, and because of that, Google is trying new ways to highlight those experiences in Google Search. This is in addition to the “Discussions and Forums” feature and the Forums filter, previously named perspectives.
Google has shown “top answers” for years, a decade actually, but this new UI shows more to the searcher. Google told us also that in some cases, Google has agreements from a forum to show these additional details. I assume this is about the Reddit partnership. But Google added that it surfaces content from hundreds of forums and other communities across the web.
What it looks like. Here is a mock up of the interface that a Google representative sent me, showing the “top comments” section” and also the “related content” section – you can click to enlarge the image:
No impact on rankings. Google said this search feature has no impact on rankings. Again, it does not affect how forum pages rank in Google Search for a given query. This is just a new way for people to access this content, and it appears on searches where forum content would have already surfaced in results.
Why we care. Like Google doesn’t show enough forum content, i.e. Reddit, in the search results, Google is now testing showing this content with new features. Google will show the top comments and related comments for these forum results.
We’ve seen Google testing various flavors of this before, but this one seems different.
It is unclear when and if this will fully roll out but Google is testing it now to see how it performs.
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About the author
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and 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.
In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the “US Search Personality Of The Year,” you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O’Clock.
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