Google on Friday announced that it will start notifying people when they search for breaking news or emerging topics that may have unreliable answers.
In other words, the search engine will display a warning for those searched topics that don’t have sufficient amount of verified information available.
To help with this, Google Search has now trained its systems to detect when a topic is rapidly evolving and a range of sources hasn’t yet weighed in.
It will show a notice indicating that it may be best to check back later when more information from a wider range of sources might be available.
“Accessing timely, relevant and reliable information is increasingly important in our current environment,” Danny Sullivan, Public Liaison for Google Search wrote in a blog post announcing the new feature.
“While Google Search will always be there with the most useful results we can provide, sometimes the reliable information you’re searching for just isn’t online yet. This can be particularly true for breaking news or emerging topics, when the information that’s published first may not be the most reliable.”
The new notices will be first rolled out in English in the U.S., with plans to expand the feature over the coming months.
Since last year, Google has added similar notices to let users know when it hasn’t been able to find anything that matches their search particularly well.
Recently, the company also launched About This Result panel, where users can quickly find information about sources they find on Google Search. This will help them to better determine if they are likely to provide helpful or trustworthy information.
It also allows users to make a more informed decision about the sites they may want to visit and what results will be most useful for them.
“Across these features, our goal is to provide more context about your results so you can more confidently evaluate the information you find online,” Sullivan concluded.
