Google Reorganizes Search Results Into ‘Web Guide’

Google is rolling out an experimental new feature that will organize traditional search results using artificial intelligence.

It’s the latest strategy by the company to protect its most profitable business from AI chatbots.

Called Web Guide, the feature will group classic search results by topic, instead of merely presenting a jumble of links, according to a Thursday (July 24) company blog post. A custom version of the company’s flagship AI model, Gemini, will power the reordering.

Web Guide adds topic headings in search results, similar to how news publications break up text in a story by adding subheads to make reading easier.

For example, if a user searches for “How to solo travel in Japan,” he or she will get headings like “Comprehensive Guides for Solo Travel in Japan” and “Personal Experiences and Tips From Solo Travelers.”

Under each heading, the AI will show website links for users to click on. Users can expand each section by clicking “More.”

In standard search, there are no headings. There’s just a jumble of links that start with sponsored links and then organic results that don’t seem to be in any particular order.

Users can test Web Guide by opting into the experiment at Google’s Search Labs. To return to classic search, there is a link in the top right above the search results.

The Web Guide feature, at least for now, appears as a tab alongside AI Mode, All, Images, Videos, News, Shopping and others.

Web Guide complements Google’s AI Overviews, which still appear at the top of search results to answer questions like an AI chatbot. The AI Mode tab will dig into the answers more deeply.

Web Guide uses a “query fan-out” technique, per the blog post. This means that after the user types in a search query, the AI will also come up with related search queries and concurrently run them. Google uses this technique in hopes of giving users the most relevant search results.

Google’s move comes as the company’s search traffic is holding its ground amid competition from AI chatbots.

In its second-quarter earnings results, parent company Alphabet reported that AI Overviews now has more than 2 billion monthly users across 200 countries and territories. AI Overviews also drives 10% more search queries globally.

Google Services revenue — which includes search, subscriptions, platforms, devices and YouTube ads — rose by 12%, to $82.5 billion in the quarter from the prior year.

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