Google is giving search results a summer makeover with a new look featuring web page branding and favicons as it continues efforts to provide more relevant and useful information to end users.
The new design will put branding “front and centre” and Google says the latest visual refresh will make it easier for searchers to scan through SERPs quickly to get the information they need and click through to the most appropriate content.
There will also be a new black ad label in place of the previous green label. This will feature at the very top of the card in search and aligned left next to a URL. These labels should be more easily distinguishable from organic results. The changes are set to roll out to mobile first and will arrive during the next week or so.
Google added: “As we continue to make new content formats and useful actions available—from buying movie tickets to playing podcasts—this new design allows us to add more action buttons and helpful previews to search results cards, all while giving you a better sense of the web page’s content with clear attribution back to the source.”
Google also confirmed on Thursday that an issue preventing new content from being indexed has been resolved. Webmasters and SEOs had reported a problem earlier in the week, which resulted in new pieces of content taking several hours to index rather than the usual minutes. Google’s Gary Illyes also said there is unlikely to have been any loss of data in Search Console because of the issue.
