Google Search adding ‘Discussions and forums’ section and translated news coverage

Abner Li | Sep 28 2022 - 11:00 am PT

At Search On 2022, Google announced that “Discussions and forums” will be getting their own sections in results, while translated news coverage is also coming next year.

Google frames “Discussions and forums” as originating from people’s desire for more “first-hand advice.” It will appear “when you search for something that might benefit from the diverse personal experiences found in online discussions.”

For example, if you search for the best cars for a growing family, in addition to other web results, you’ll now see links to forum posts that include relevant advice from people, like their experience with minivans for transporting multiple children.

According to Google, this addition has “no influence on the ranking of forum-related or other search results outside of the feature.”

The company says it’s been “exploring” how to show more of this type of information. This is presumably a reflection of how people are increasingly appending “reddit” to the end of queries to see results from actual people. It’s rolling out starting today to English users on mobile in the US, and might get updated as Google learns “what’s most useful for people.”

Meanwhile, early next year, Google Search will surface machine translated news coverage. Articles will be marked as “Translated by Google,” while you can “See original” at any time.

Say you wanted to learn about how people in Mexico were impacted by the more than 7 magnitude earthquake earlier this month. With this feature, you’ll be able to search and see translated headlines for news results from publishers in Mexico, in addition to ones written in your preferred language.

Google says this feature “connects readers looking for international news to relevant local reporting in other languages.” It will first translate French, German, and Spanish into English on mobile and desktop Search.