Google, who has been building on an experiment following the most recent Republican debate, will be providing more in-depth election-related content in their search results about the candidates and key issues.
In both Google Now and regular search, users will be getting a combination of both candidate-generated content and third-party content about the primaries and the election.
Since Google said previously that there won’t be any advertising, there won’t be any “candidate listing ads.”
Although the information provided in these search results are useful, Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land called the launch of candidate cards as a “disaster for search quality.” But, for searches for individual candidates or specific issues, there could be less vulnerabilities to problems that Danny identified in connection with the Republican debate, such as dominance by a singe candidate.
The placement in search will be variable, depending on the specific query done by the user. But, cards will always appear at the top of results. Candidates are going to be able to provide their own statements and content, but Google will be aggregating articles and providing “scorecards” for candidates based on delegate counts and primary outcomes.
Google gave an explanation in a blog post:
Tracking what’s happening in the primaries and how each candidate is doing state-by-state can be hard. So now when you search for “primary results” or “resultados de la elección primaria” you’ll not only see the primary election schedule, but you’ll also see live results and an evolving tally of how many delegates each Republican and Democratic nominee has received. This feature works in English and Spanish.
Another interesting feature Google is utilizing is remind people to vote. Cards will let voters of the dates of their state primaries. Not only that, but Google will tell users will tell them where the polling places are.