Important Points

• Google's chief of search, Prabhakar Raghavan, said that when staff members inquired about the Reddit outages and their effects on search results, users are dissatisfied.
• According to Raghavan, the business is testing several methods to enhance search results and provide more reliable information.
• The social media platforms TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and Quora will all have discussion forums and videos surfaced by Google's new Perspectives feature, which was unveiled on Monday.

Google users have long been capable of improving their search results by including the term "Reddit" to find helpful data on specific topics.

However, when numerous Reddit forums went offline earlier this month, this tactic lost its effectiveness. Many pages in search results suddenly became inaccessible or unhelpful because moderators of some popular forums made their pages private as part of a widespread protest against Reddit's decision to charge developers for data access.

In response to this issue, Google has introduced a new feature called Perspectives, which was unveiled on Monday. The Perspectives tab, which is currently available in the United States on mobile web and the Google app, seeks to surface discussion forums and videos from social media sites such as TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and Quora.

Earlier this month, Google's senior vice president of search, Prabhakar Raghavan, addressed user frustration and discussed the company's efforts to display useful information in search results without that require users to add "Reddit" to their searches.

Raghavan acknowledged the need to improve user satisfaction and responded to an employee's comment about negative user feedback, which mentioned excessive ads and irrelevant results. He emphasized the importance of enhancing the user experience on the core Google search product.

Google is currently working on revamping its search capabilities to keep up with competitors and leverage the latest advancements in generative artificial intelligence. This involves providing more sophisticated and conversational answers to text-based queries.

During its annual developer conference in May, Google announced its experimentation with a project called Search Generative Experience, which aims to deliver more comprehensive and in-depth results powered by generative AI. Additionally, Google introduced Bard, a ChatGPT competitor, earlier this year. Google Bard is still isolated from the rest of the world and in experimental mode.

Another employee at the companywide meeting raised a question about the difficulty of finding "authentic discussion" due to the "Reddit blackout."

CEO Sundar Pichai chimed in, stating that users prioritize "more comprehensive answers" over "blue links." This explains why they include the name of forum sites like Reddit in their searches.

HJ Kim, vice president of engineering in search, acknowledged the demand for more content from sites like Reddit and mentioned the Perspectives tab as one of the features developed by Google in response. However, Kim acknowledged that there is room for improvement.

Kim emphasized the efforts made by Google's cross-functional teams to address this type of content over the past few years, particularly concerning Reddit. He expressed the company's commitment to doing a better job and determining which strategies yield the best results.

Raghavan further explained the concept behind Perspectives, highlighting the aim to provide immediate answers for questions with multiple opinions, rather than appending additional information. The early engagement with this approach has been positive.

While Google invests significant time and resources in AI, Raghavan emphasized that it alone cannot fully resolve this issue. The company is running experiments and Perspectives is one example of its commitment to addressing emerging needs.

Lara Levin, a Google spokeswoman, stated that search already satisfies most user needs and that Google is continuously improving Search to meet evolving requirements. The Perspectives filter is one of the features that contribute to ensuring users find the most helpful information from a variety of sources and formats on Google.

In conclusion, Google's introduction of the Perspectives feature reflects the company's dedication to enhancing the search experience by surfacing valuable discussions and videos from various social media platforms. Through ongoing improvements and experimentation, Google aims to provide users with more comprehensive answers and address emerging needs effectively.