Google Discover tests showing a lot more AMP Stories with dedicated carousel

Abner Li | Jul 10 2020 - 1:06 pm PT

Google has surfaced AMP Stories since late 2018 to give publishers a way to deliver “news and information as visually rich, tap-through stories.” They currently appear as one-off cards, but Google Discover is now testing a “Stories” carousel.

Besides cards, Google Discover has lately surfaced grouped lists for “COVID-19 news” and a 3×2 topic grid about “Daily life during COVID-19” that generates a feed of relevant articles.

Instead of just having tall cards with portrait images for Accelerated Mobile Page Stories, Google is surfacing a carousel for some users. There’s a background cover with the publication’s icon in the top-left and name at the bottom. Above that is the title, and tapping launches the usual experience.

The carousel is similar to the one that appears within YouTube for that service’s equivalent offering. Meanwhile, stories for a site can appear in Google results when directly searching for that publication.

You can scroll left to see more articles, while there’s an overflow menu with options in the top right. It appears alongside other content cards, but it’s placed rather high in the feed.

What’s notable about this carousel of Stories is how it allows Google Discover to show a lot more content without requiring you to keep scrolling. The mini cover images are particularly attention grabbing.

One user so far has had this feed for the past week inside the Google app and to the left of the Pixel Launcher. It’s not widely rolled out, with most users not seeing too many AMP Stories in Discover.