Google has added a new content highlighting feature to its search engine that aims to make it easier to find key information on webpages, reports SearchEngineLand (via The Verge).
The feature works with Google's Featured Snippets, which appear at the top of search results. Clicking a snippet takes the user to the source webpage, but now the browser automatically scrolls down the page to the text that appeared in the snippet and highlights it in yellow.
Google says the feature has been available with AMP pages since December 2018, but this is the first time Google has rolled it out for regular HTML content, too.
Web developers don't need to do anything to get content highlighting working on their sites, as it's all managed at Google's end and happens automatically, although our tests backed up The Verge's claim that, currently, it doesn't always work.
There is no markup needed by webmasters. This happens automatically, using Scroll To Text for HTML pages https://t.co/cE9O2cBgKu. See also more background here: https://t.co/vKFmR3HLK3 — Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 3, 2020
The search shown in the images at the top of our article worked on desktop in Chrome, but not in Safari or Firefox, for example. They didn't work in the mobile versions of these browsers for us at all.
As noted by SearchEngineLand, the feature could have an impact on the ad market, since visitors may be automatically scrolled down past website ads to the highlighted content. In some instances, sites may need to relocate their ads to align with the new Google feature.
