14 DAY TRIAL // Google places its engineering prowess above all else and nowhere is this prowess clearer than in its search engine. Google engineers are very proud of their algorithms yet even they know that there are a few times when they can’t provide the best information. In these cases, the company opts to return results from authoritative sources on top of the organic results.
One area where this is especially important is health. Last year, the search giant introduced the Health OneBox featuring information on health-related topics supplied by Google itself. Now, it’s expanding it to include information about medication.
Searching for a particular drug will bring up a short description, as well as links to additional information about it from the US National Institute of Health. You can go the NIH site to get more information or jump directly to info such as side effects and dietary instructions. This feature was actually developed in partnership with NIH, which is partially why it won’t be made available outside of the US, at least not with the same content provider.
Interestingly, on some searches, the box also has a rather prominent ad for the particular drug, which squeezes the actual info to the side. This may be a layout error that Google hasn’t fixed yet, but if it’s not, it is particularly annoying.
The feature is live only in the US for now and, unlike many other cases, there’s a pretty solid reason for this. Health information is not something you want to be wrong about and since it is supplying the info itself and not just listing third-party sites, it is directly responsible and liable for what it publishes. As such, it needs to have a reliable source of information for any country where it may launch this product. At this time, Google is not revealing any plans to expand the product to other markets.