Google Search

Google Search is not removing ‘News’ filter, despite frustrating recent tests

Ben Schoon | Feb 23 2024 - 11:41 am PT

Google Search has long supported filtering search results into categories such as images, but one of the most useful is the “News” tab. For the past few months, Google Search has been testing shuffling those tabs around, but the company has now confirmed that it’s just a test and that the “News” tab won’t be removed permanently.

Whenever you do a Google search, you’ll see a bar across the top of the page, directly under the search bar, which has categories. This bar used to be static, showing Images and News prominently alongside other options. In recent months, though, Google has been shuffling this around, showing everything in a different order and, at times, even removing certain tabs altogether.

More often than not, the “News” tab was removed from Google search results, which can be frustrating as that tab is particularly good at surfacing recent results on a search term. The tab is also incredibly important for publishers, which can see significant traffic directed from Google.

In a statement posted to Twitter/X, Google’s Search Liason explained that this is just a test to “better understand the preferences of our users” and that it only affected a “small subset of users.”

The News filter is available to users now and we do not have plans to remove it. In an effort to better understand the preferences of our users, we were testing different ways to show filters on Search and as a result, a small subset of users were temporarily unable to access some of them.

It’s unclear if Google intends to continue shuffling the order of search tabs, but at the very least, it sounds like the “News” tab isn’t gone for good – at least not yet.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Google started testing a new, more prominent look for the various search filters.