Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has made some changes to the way it shows the results of your searches. Some may notice these changes right away, while they’ll look more subtle to others. From the looks of comments posted on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) so far though, many people aren’t too thrilled with the changes.
Google tweaks results font
After comparing the old and new results, you’ll see that the links on the newer set of results are not underlined. Instead, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has made the font just slightly larger. The result is a page with more white space and that—Google hopes anyway—is easier to read.
Search Engine Land noted that Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) was testing these changes earlier this month,” and now it appears as if they have been rolled out to much of the world. There have been some indications that tests on this new design even stretch all the way back to last fall.
Google changes ads
Another area which really bumped up the amount of white space on the pages is in the ad box at the top. You may have noticed that as recently as yesterday, it was shaded pink. That pink background made it pretty obvious that those were ads and that they were separate from the rest of the search results. The pink background is gone now though, and instead, there’s a little yellow box in front of them that simply says “Ad.”
If you use Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Search on your mobile devices, these changes to the ads might not look that different to you because as Mashable notes, the company rolled out the same look to its mobile ads back in September. The company said they’re going for a cleaner and simpler layout which is easier to read. Also at that time, they said the layout was optimized for use on touch devices. Now that this same look has come to the desktop, clearly Google is just looking to make the user experience more consistent across all kinds of devices.
