On 1st Feb 2021, Google released a minor change in the presentation of the search results to help users learn more about the websites they are browsing.
When we search something on Google, we get results from different sources that we are familiar with like news sites, shopping portals, medical sites, and more.
Related: Core Web Vitals For Google SEO
But as Google shows thousands of results for every query, there is tons of information available on other websites that you aren’t familiar with and haven’t used before.
To make it clear to the users about the information they are browsing, Google will now show a description of the website in the search results.
Related: How to Do a Reverse Image Search on Google?
This will save a lot of time as additional research won’t be required to learn more about the website they are browsing.
In the coming days as the change is applied across the world, Google will start showing a “3-dots menu” icon, as shown in the image below to almost every Google search results. This is known as Google menu icons.
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When you tap on this icon, Google will provide you with the website information sourced directly from Wikipedia.
With this information, users can decide which search results are useful and which site they should visit to get trusted information.
Related: How to Make Website Trustworthy?
Often, the information about the website would be displayed from Wikipedia but, if any website doesn’t have Wikipedia information, then Google will show information like when they first indexed the website.
For example, when I searched SEO Sandwitch Blog on Google, Google presented the information that it was first indexed by Google in May 2012 and the connection to the site is secure.
If any site is indexed more than 10 years ago then Google will present the information that it was indexed more than 10 years ago and the connection to the site is secure. Here is an example:
Apart from this, Google menu icons will also show the same information for organized results like business listings or job listings. Here, you can see the sources of the job listings provided by Google.
Related: Google My Business Listing Optimization Guide
Under Google menu icons, you will also see an option named “Privacy setting”, that is provided for users to go to their privacy settings in one-click quickly.
Google is rolling out the menu icons change from 1st Feb in the US (English) on desktop, mobile and Google app for android. The intention behind this update is to let users learn about the websites that are ranking in the search results to avoid additional search queries from the users.
