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As we already witnessed, Google rolls out some drastic redesigns when there’s something big happening in the world. When COVID struck, Google transformed its SERPs and gave us all the relevant and important information about the outbreak. Now, it’s doing the same for the Russian – Ukrainian war.
If you search “Russia Ukraine” (or whatever other combo, I’ve tried it) Google will offer you a nicely organized page with a few sections. First, there is a title: “2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine”, then there is the ‘ For context’ section, ‘Estimated losses’, ‘Photos’, and ‘About’. What is interesting is the photo carousel of people ‘Mentioned in the news’.
As for the title, Search Engine Land reports that it’s not always there, but regardless of the headline being there or not, the search results were the same.
As you can see, in the ‘Estimated losses’ section you can find details about fatalities, displaced civilians and destroyed buildings. You can also see where Google gets its information from – in this case, it’s Reuters.
As for the ‘Photos’ section, it’s interesting to see the difference between these photos and the ones that usually appear in your search results. These pictures are not image search results, they are licensed and cannot be clicked on.
The ‘About’ section comes from Wikipedia, just like Google mentioned when they launched the ‘About this’ feature we wrote about.
In the ‘For context’ section you can find exactly that – context. Google provides is with more background information about the conflict. Notice how the articles listed here are older than the ones offered at the top of the page. A similar thing was noticed a few years back.
‘Mentioned in the News’ section shows you people that are somehow related to the situation and were, you guessed it, mentioned in the news.
Why Is This Important?
The importance of being aware of what’s happening out there and how it could affect you is not a thing that has to be explained. Not only will this feature help you gain information and come to your own conclusions, but it might affect your business in the future. Google might use the same, or a similar layout for more, regular, search queries – including the ones about your brand and business. This layout could impact your organic opportunities.
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