There are some people reporting that the larger widths in the Google search results we've been seeing Google testing since earlier this month is live for all. Truth is, it is not, it is just a test, an experiment, that many searchers are noticing. But they are also noticing the card based interface.
Google's John Mueller clarified this morning on Twitter that this is just an experiment. He wrote, "We're always experimenting, so I'd have a tough time saying "new" to any particular change," when asked about the larger widths. Here is the tweet:
@JulianMHoffmann @methode We're always experimenting, so I'd have a tough time saying "new" to any particular change.
— John Mueller (@JohnMu) May 24, 2016
He also referenced it in the Friday Google hangout at the 30:14 minute mark on Google+, where he answered this question:
Google has increased the length of titles and meta description what is the new title and description length?
With this answer:
I think what happened is we kind of increased the width of the column of the search results, on some devices at least. And in general we try to match the length to what we're displaying. So it is not that there’s any character count that we could cut off, but rather we try to figure out what fits in here, what can we show and match it like that.
As you can see, that can confuse people to think that Google said it is here to say, so John had to clarify this morning that this is just an experiment and it may or may not go live to all.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
