This week, Google is celebrating its 20th Anniversary since a pair of Stanford PhD students founded a search engine company based in their friend Susan’s Menlo garage. But, it is not only a celebration; Google also announces 4 new updates to its services and products worldwide.

• First announcement (Some New Updates to Visual Results)

Google’s first announcement mentions some new updates to Visual Results on Google platforms. These changes will include:

AMP Stories: Google has revealed that they’re working on making AMP stories more discoverable by querying them in both Google Image search results, as well as within Google Discover, aiming to enable publishers and content creators to launch pages that both load fast and come with an overall positive user experience. Earlier this year, AMP Story was launched by Google, in order to introduce fast-loading content that’s almost completely visual, and very immersive.

Featured Videos: Google also points out the launch of a new visual tool “Featured Videos”, which uses machine learning to enable users to explore the most helpful video content for their search queries. For example, when anyone visits a new situation for the first time, he can use Google “Featured Videos” tool to show him the videos that are the most applicable to his situation.

More Context for Google Image Results: In the same event, Google also announced that starting this week, Google Image search results will now have more context, which will include captions which show where the image is published, and more suggested, similar search terms at the top of the page.

• Google Lens: According to Google, “Google Lens” tool will be available in Image search results, in order to make results more informative. Google Lens helps users identify objects that are included in a viewed image and familiarize them with each of those objects. Back in May, Google announced at its annual I/O developer conference the launch of  Lens, which is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technology that helps answer people’s questions about the photos they take. According to Lens, users can reach places where these objects can be purchased.

  

• Second Announcement(Replacing Google Feed By Discover ) 

As a second announcement, Google revealed its plan to change “Google Feed” feature name into “Discover”. First, Google launched “Google Feed” feature within its app, in order to make users informed with what’s new and discover content. But now, “Google Feed” becomes ” Discover” and its look also has been changed, aiming to provide more context. Discover also will provide users with several options that make them aware of latest trends, such as;

1. The content featured will have a topic header, in order to allow users to identify why they are seeing it. And, then they can decide if they need to explore that topic further or not. After that, it’ll be an easy process to discover all the details.
2. It will also be more personalized.
3. Discover also will provide users with more customization options for the content featured in the Discover tab.
4. It will be available in multiple languages.
5. Google Discover feature will no longer take the age of the content into account as long as it’s relevant.
6. It will be also available on the Google.com homepage across all mobile browsers, not only on the Google app.

• Third Announcement( Introducing Activity Cards)

During its event, Google also announced the launch of a new helpful feature for their users, which called “activity cards”, an intelligent tool that’s considered to be visual representations of the users’ Search history. Activity cards also will help users retrace their steps during searching topics. Accordingly, pages they have previously visited while researching the same topic will appear in Search results.

Additionally, Google added a new feature Alongside “Activity cards” that’s called “Collections”, a new tool that enables users to add a page from their activity cards to a collection of content pieces on a given topic.

• • Fourth Announcement (Rolling out Topic Layer) 

  One of Google’s most important announcement within this event in San Francisco, USA, is that Google is adding “Topic Layer”, that’s considered to be another layer to its Knowledge Graph, which enables Google to raise its understanding of user queries. Accordingly, users will be provided with more context, results will be more relevant, and they will be more informed about a given topic down to the very last detail of what they want to know. Indeed, The Topic Layer will have the ability to identify the many nuances of a given topic by analyzing all the content that exists on the web for a given topic and develops hundreds and thousands of subtopics, as reported by Google. In the same context, it should be mentioned that “The Knowledge Graph” is a knowledge base used by Google and its services to enhance its search engine’s results with information gathered from a variety of sources. The information is presented to users in an infobox next to the search results.

  Indeed, these changes prove that Google is enhancing users’ experience when they’re using its several services, tools, and platforms, in addition, these new features and updates make Google’s celebrations more meaningful.