Google Enhances the Search Snippet

With all of the things Google has its hands on, it's easy to forget that it's still a search company at its core and that most of its revenue is derived from the search engine. And, with increased competition from Microsoft, Google is not sitting still, constantly tweaking and updating it. The latest additions are a couple of features for the search snippet making it easier to find the exact information you are looking for.

“For most search results, Google shows you a few lines of text to give you an idea of what the page is about — we call this a "search snippet." Recently, we've enhanced the search snippet with two new features that make it easier to find information buried deep within a page,” Chris Kern from the Snippets team wrote. “By providing links within the snippet to relevant sections of the page, [the new features make] it faster and easier to find what you're looking for.”

The first feature lists several links to the different sections of a page allowing you to go directly to the section that may interest you. The feature has been available, at least for some users, for several weeks now. The new links won't show up for every page but they are already working for sites like Wikipedia. Google exemplifies with a search for “trans fat,” which returns a number of results including one for Wikipedia. This includes the regular text snippet but now also has links to the main sections in the article.

The second feature is somewhat similar in that it provides a faster way of reaching certain sections of a page. Some search results will now feature a “Jump to ...” link which allows users to skip to the portion of the page that contains their exact query rather than just going to the main page and then having to locate the relevant section.