What you need to know
- Google is experimenting with a Quick View feature in Google Search in a limited test.
- Users searching for online recipes can use Quick View to see ingredient lists, instructions, and more without clicking a webpage.
- The experimental feature makes it easier to parse digital recipes, but makes it harder to find the original source of the content.
Google Search is excellent at making its highlighted results to your query so insightful that there's little need to click through to the original source it came from. The company uses things like Featured Snippets, AI Overviews, and more to pull content from webpages that are shown front-and-center in search results. Now, it's exploring using a feature called Quick View to show you a full recipe without needing to open the webpage.
The test was first spotted by Search Engine Roundtable, which documented how Quick View works. When you search for a recipe with Google, you'll see a collection of links in the results — that's normal and to be expected. What's new is that select recipes and sites will have a new "Quick View" icon overlayed on the thumbnail. If you click this button, a streamlined overlay appears with everything you need to complete the recipe, from ingredients to step-by-step instructions.
For those that have used a reader view before, the experimental Quick View feature works in a similar way. The idea is simple — provide a simple view for parsing recipes that can be increasingly hard to navigate on sites filled with ads and other distracting elements. Of course, the benefit for Google is that Quick View keeps you on its search results page, rather than directs you to another site.
"We’re always experimenting with different ways to connect our users with high-quality and helpful information. We have partnered with a limited number of creators to begin to explore new recipe experiences on Search that are both helpful for users and drive value to the web ecosystem," a Google spokesperson told Android Central in an email. "We don’t have anything to announce right now.”
The spokesperson added that this is a limited, early-stage experiment. Additionally, the participating sites with recipes appearing in Quick View results reached agreements with Google to showcase their content. Though Google did not explicitly confirm that publishers are being paid for their recipes appearing in Quick View, it would stand to reason that these agreements include some form of compensation.
Google tests out new features in Search all the time, and being that this is a limited test, there's no way to know whether Quick View will become widely available in the future. It's easy to see how Quick View benefits Google and its users — Google gets to keep users on its search results pages, while users get to view streamlined recipes. However, to make this idea work at scale, the company would have to get recipe publishers to buy in.
Are we heading toward a webpage-less future?
Google, and search engines at large, initially served as a way to direct users to the webpage they were looking for. Advertisements and sponsored results are mixed in to drive revenue back to the search engine provider. However, in recent years, Google has tried the limit the need for users to navigate to the original source of content on the web. Through Featured Snippets and AI Overviews, it hopes to answer your question before you need to quick through to a third-party site.
The company even went as far to say that it wants Google to "do the Googling for you" at its developer conference this year. Part of that involves the use of AI Overviews, which extract the key points of one or more articles that aim to answer your search query. However, AI Overviews and Feature Snippets work best with a specific question. For things like recipes, there needs to be another solution. That could, one day, become Quick View.
A natural concern for publishers is how they will be fairly compensated for the content they create that appears in Quick View. If there's no reason for a user to click through to the original webpage, there's no way for a site to earn advertising revenue. While it appears Google is compensating publishers at the moment, it's unclear if that will be the case forever. Another valid concern is that if publishers become dependent on Google, they'll lose bargaining power when creating future deals.
We'll have to see how it all plays out. For now, Quick View looks like a good idea, and participating publishers have reached an agreement with Google for their recipes to be included.
