New Google Search Feature Could Affect Publishers

Google’s introduction of a search within search feature, which lets users stay on Google to find pages on sites such as Wikipedia, has reportedly upset some publishers.

According to the New York Times, some publishers are not happy about this new functionality as they want people to search on their own pages and be exposed to their ads rather than Google’s.

The New York Times adds that Google is allowing some publishers to opt out of the new feature.

However, Google may encounter some complaints, as the new style results page sometimes includes sponsored links that are purchased by publishers’ competitors.

The report gives the example of users searching Google for The Washington Post and being given a secondary search box.

Those who typed ‘jobs’ into that second box saw related results for The Post‘s employment pages, but the results were bordered by ads for competing employment sites like CareerBuilder or Monster.com.

A Google spokeswoman said that the search feature is currently available for an undisclosed, but relatively small, number of sites, and appears when Google detects a high probability that a user wants more refined search results within a specific site.

While Google has not received much negative feedback on the service, the spokeswoman said, the company could change it in the future.

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