Google is testing a new share feature within their search results. While it is most noticeable with the knowledge panel for company names, it is also showing for other features such as recipes, movies and more.
Here is how it looks in desktop:
Clicking on the share link, brings up the share box with icons for Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email, as well as a copy of the link that is shortened with the g.co shortener.
Sharing will bring someone to a search result page for the company name – note that it will bring up the exact company name. Even though I searched for “Home Depot”, it brought up “The Home Depot” as the search query via the share, since the company name listed in Google’s knowledge panel is “The Home Depot.”
Google seems to have turned this functionality on yesterday. Here are some mobile screenshots I captured Tuesday of the new share feature, this time showing the recipe sharing feature.
It also is showing for movie related searches, and they also show for shows, books and games:
And the mobile version of a company knowledge panel:
They also added a new globe icon, although the URL was shown previously, but without the icon.
This does appear to be live for many users, so it might be in the process of rolling out to everyone. But it is hard to know what percentage of searchers will recognize the icon as a sharing icon, since there is not any other direction on the page about it being sharable. So whether this will be used remains to be seen, and if not, it might not be a permanent change.
Jennifer Slegg
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