Google has added a new drop-down box on some search results, providing information about the site the result comes from. It’s using the Knowledge Graph to provide this information.
For example, this result from CivilWar.org provides such a box explaining that the site comes from Civil War Trust, a nonprofit organization. It even includes the founding date, and a little information about the organization itself, in this case, from Wikipedia.
“As you choose the right search result for you — be that about the American Civil War or back pain — you want to know where the results come from,” says Google software engineer Bart Niechwiej.
Google doe not display such boxes for all sites, and it’s unclear how Google chooses exactly which sites to include.
“You’ll see this extra information when a site is widely recognized as notable online, when there is enough information to show or when the content may be handy for you,” explains Niechwiej.
Still, there are plenty of results from well-known sites that aren’t displaying the boxes.
Google says it expects to give more info about more sites as it continues to expand the Knowledge Graph. Let’s just hope that they also get better at keeping the Knowledge Graph accurate, as we’ve seen quite a few errors in search results. We wouldn’t want those spread further throughout the SERPs.
Image via Google
