Google Top Stories Showing Fewer Top Stories For Political Figures?

Google Search changed how many stories it shows for political figures recently. Now Google shows the two by two top stories grid in search for searches on Harris, Trump and other political figures. Google use to show 7 top stories formats for these figures.

This change was spotted by Will Flannigan, the SEO Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He wrote on X a few days ago, "Is anyone else noticing a lack of 7 position news boxes on desktop for candidate and election-related queries? Here's a quick survey this morning."

I gave it a couple of days, and yes, it seems to be the case. Here are some example queries I took recently:

Compare that for a search on Joe Rogan where you get a different look:

Or Mr Beast:

Or for just Google:

Here are more examples:

Ya I'm also noticing only 2x2 pack only in Australia > Desktop results pic.twitter.com/cGOHMKDr2p

— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) August 13, 2024

Something is going on with news boxes related to political candidates.

Google still offering only 4 story newsboxes. This example for Donald Trump shows two newsbox clusters, one focused on local.

What gives? I can't be the only person seeing this. Can I?#SEO #NewsSEO pic.twitter.com/gdysC0Vlue

— Will Flannigan 🌵 (@Will_Flannigan) August 14, 2024

I am not sure if this is some sort of intentional change, a bug or something else.

Gagan noticed things improving on his end but I am not sure:

hmm, not me, yet, trump and harris look even more basic today for me... pic.twitter.com/O7y8lLwZez

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) August 15, 2024

Forum discussion at X.

Update: September 10th - they are back:

I just noticed this too! Thanks for flagging

— Will Flannigan 🌵 (@Will_Flannigan) September 10, 2024