Summary
- Google’s experimental “Notes” feature is being removed. For the last six months, it has allowed users to comment on search results to assist others.
- Though Notes is being scrapped, users can still opt-in to try the feature until the end of July.
- Google may apply insights from the experiment to future products, potentially bringing back the feature under a new name.
Google Search Labs, the tech giant’s testing ground for new features, simultaneously runs several experimental features at once. New features arrive in Search Labs all the time, and the same goes for features that are scrapped.
In August last year, we started seeing hints of a feature that turned out to be Notes in mid-November. Users were able to opt in to try out the feature, which essentially lets people chime in on Search results and share information about specific web pages. Other users could see these comments, or Notes, and decide if they wanted to visit that specific search result or not.
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‘Notes’ lets you comment on search results to help other users
At the time of release, Google clearly had hopes and ambitions for the feature. It even put out a fancy explainer/guide blog post for it. “In the months ahead, we’ll actively explore ways to provide site owners insights into notes on their content,” it wrote at the time. Now, it appears as though the feature is being scrapped, as confirmed by 9to5Google, and it won’t be rolling out widely, at least not any time soon.
You can still try out Notes for the time being
If this is your first time hearing about the Notes experiment, and it sounds fascinating to you, you should still be able to try it out. The feature will be available until the end of this month (July), and you can opt-in to try it from the Search Labs page. If you’ve already participated in the experiment, you can access your contributions until the end of the month and download them via Google Takeout until the end of August.
In a statement given to 9to5Google, a Google spokesperson alluded that Google might apply what it learned from the Notes experiment to a future product experience, leaving the door open for a potential return for the feature, likely with a different name.
“Search Labs is our testbed for bold experimentation and as we’ve shared, not all experiments will launch broadly. We’ve seen in our research that people want to hear from others like them and Notes was an exploration of how to help people share their knowledge right on Search. We’re excited to continue testing new ways to connect people to authentic, relatable voices and look forward to bringing some of our learnings from Notes into future product experiences.”