Google’s new search carousel skims more content from sites like Pinterest and Houzz

Google is known for historically having a goal with search to get people to the information they want as quickly as possible. Search engines by design are intended to get you what you’re looking for on the first try, so it makes total sense that Google optimizes ruthlessly in hopes that you don’t have to click the next page link. But ever since the company introduced search cards it’s been evident that it wants to be the host of the information you’re looking for whenever possible. A new small change today adds on that.

Google shared on Google+ yesterday the image above. Here’s the text that goes along with it:

“Whether you are looking for Pinterest pins, Vines, Houzz idea books or Food Network recipes, you can now browse through more content from your favorite websites within Google search results on your mobile device. Simply swipe through links within a carousel and tap any link to read or watch exactly what you are interested in.”

Many companies, mainly media brands, have been very vocal in saying that Google’s cards that pull snippets of information with answers to user queries and share them directly within search results are acts of outright theft. Some of them even pull their content from Google which almost always unsurprisingly backfires with huge declines in traffic afterwards, which most famously is exactly what happened to Axel Springer, the German media publishing giant.

This new carousel which pulls from image-heavy like Pinterest and Food Network seems like less of a problem as images alone aren’t their bread and butter, but nonetheless it’s another example of Google skimming content off the top of other properties to build its own faux content network.