Implications of Google’s Search Comments Feature

Google makes regular updates that have a potentially significant impact on online marketing professionals and the SEO world as a whole, and one such update is in the works currently: A feature allowing users to actually comment on search results. The feature, which is widespread and allows for a few different types of comments, should be rolling out soon.

At SEO Werkz, our search engine optimization pros are here to help you understand how, if at all, this new development may impact your internet marketing efforts. Here are some basics on this new feature, plus how to use it once it rolls out and some possible future developments that could be on the way with this same theme.

The Basics

This development is still in its early stages, and has actually only been revealed to this point as one allowing users to comment and read comments for various live sports games and corresponding Google searches for them. This is stated in some detail in a basic Help Document offered by Google, one that also leaves simple steps on how to accomplish this commenting.

Beyond this, each user has their own page that’s dedicated to past comment they’ve made in search sections of their profile. Google’s official help page says that anyone can leave comments “on the things you’ve searched for on Google” – this could have major future implications well beyond the sports world, which we’ll go over in a moment.

How to Comment

Per the Google help page, commenting will work fairly simply once it rolls out. To leave a comment, you will follow these basic steps:

• Go to Google’s web page or app, and do a search on any relevant topic of your choosing.
• In the overview search box, you’ll see a “More” option. Tap or click this.
• From here, tap or click “Comments” and then tap or click “Viewers.”
• You’ll see an option available here for “Add a public comment.” Select this option and enter your comment.

Know that there will be no such thing as anonymous comments through this format – you have to be logged in to your Google account to use this feature, and comments will be logged under your real name. At the same time, deleting comments will be possible.

Looking Forward

As we hinted at above, this could just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the overall functionality of this commenting feature. Google’s own help page making broader references to overall searches, rather than just sports, indicates that the company might be planning to roll this feature out on a much larger scale in the near future. Users will have the ability to like and dislike comments, similar to Facebook. These developments could have a massive impact on Google search as a whole, so keep an eye out.

For more on features like this, or to learn about how we can help you understand and optimize them for your company, speak to the pros at SEO Werkz today.