A new look for Google Search

Our goal with Search always has been to help people quickly and easily find the information that they’re looking for. Over the years, the amount and format of information available on the web has changed drastically—from the proliferation of images and video, to the availability of 3D objects you can now view in AR.

The search results page, too, has changed to help you discover these new types of information and quickly determine what’s most useful for you. As we continue our ongoing efforts to improve Search and provide a modern and helpful experience, today we’re unveiling a visual refresh of the mobile search results page to better guide you through the information available on the web.

With this new design, a website’s branding can be front and center, helping you better understand where the information is coming from and what pages have what you’re looking for.  

The name of the website and its icon appear at the top of the results card to help anchor each result, so you can more easily scan the page of results and decide what to explore next. Site owners can learn more about how to choose their prefered icon for organic listings here.

When you search for a product or service and we have a useful ad to show, you'll see a bolded ad label at the top of the card alongside the web address so you can quickly identify where the information is coming from.

As we continue to make new content formats and useful actions available—from buying movie tickets to playing podcasts—this new design allows us to add more action buttons and helpful previews to search results cards, all while giving you a better sense of the web page’s content with clear attribution back to the source.

This redesign is coming first to mobile and will be rolling out over the next few days. Stay tuned for even more fresh ways that Search can help you find what you’re looking for.

Introducing Custom Templates

Google Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360 help you more easily and safely deploy tags for all your marketing and measurement tools. Security and collaboration features give IT teams more control over the tagging process, while features like auto-event triggers and built-in templates help marketers get the data they need without having to deal with code.

For scenarios where the built-in templates don’t cover your needs, we also offer options to deploy your own custom HTML and JavaScript. To help protect the security of your users and sites, we already scan all custom HTML tags for malware. Developers can also choose to blacklist custom scripts directly on page. But, we want to help make tagging even safer.

Today, we’re introducing Custom Templates—a new set of features in Tag Manager and Tag Manager 360 to give you more transparency and control over the tags on your site.

With Custom Templates, you can use a built-in Template Editor to design tag and variable templates that can be used throughout your container.

This means that less technical users can manage instances of your custom tags just like the built-in tags, without messing with code. (Custom Templates will show up alongside the built-in templates when you go to add a new tag or variable.) And, since you can write your template once and reuse it, less code will need to be loaded on your site.

Template permissions

In order to provide a safer execution environment for your tags, Custom Templates use a sandboxed version of JavaScript. With sandboxed JavaScript, certain potentially sensitive operations (e.g. loading external scripts, accessing cookies, sending pixels, etc.) require the use of sandbox APIs:

When you use these APIs, associated template permissions will automatically be surfaced and require that you declare how you’re using them (e.g. where external scripts can be loaded from, which cookies can be accessed, where data can be sent, etc.):

The behavior of your templates is tightly controlled by these permissions. Other users will be able to see exactly what your custom tags and variables are permitted to do. And, developers can write on-page policies to govern their behavior.

Starting today, you’ll see a new Templates section in the left sidebar of your containers. Whether you’re a marketer wanting to do more in Tag Manager without code or a developer wanting more control over third-party tags on your site, Custom Templates will improve your tagging capabilities.

Introducing auto-delete controls for your Location History and activity data

Whether you’re looking for the latest news or the quickest driving route, we aim to make our products helpful for everyone. And when you turn on settings like Location History or Web & App Activity, the data can make Google products more useful for you—like recommending a restaurant that you might enjoy, or helping you pick up where you left off on a previous search. We work to keep your data private and secure, and we’ve heard your feedback that we need to provide simpler ways for you to manage or delete it.

You can already use your Google Account to access simple on/off controls for Location History and Web & App Activity, and if you choose—to delete all or part of that data manually. In addition to these options, we’re announcing auto-delete controls that make it even easier to manage your data. 

Choose a time limit for how long you want your activity data to be saved—3 or 18 months—and any data older than that will be automatically deleted from your account on an ongoing basis. These controls are coming first to Location History and Web & App Activity and will roll out in the coming weeks.

You should always be able to manage your data in a way that works best for you--and we’re committed to giving you the best controls to make that happen

Spring into healthy habits with help from Google Home

Spring is (finally) here. Not only am I using the warmer weather and longer days as a reason to clean out my closet, but I'm also taking the opportunity to clean up my routine and stick to my wellness goals. I'd like to read one book per week, cook more healthy recipes for my family and get at least seven hours of sleep per night… with a full time job and two toddlers. Life is a lot to manage, so I use my Google Home products to keep track of everything I want to accomplish.

Here are a few ways that your Google Assistant on Google Home devices can help with your wellness goals and put some spring in your step:

Get more sleep

Starting today, our Gentle Sleep & Wake feature lets you use any Google Home device to set a routine that gradually turns your Philips Hue smart lights on (wake) or off (sleep) over the course of 30 minutes, to mimic the sunrise or help you prepare for bed. This gradual change of light helps improve the quality of your sleep. Just say, “Hey Google,” then:

• “Turn on Gentle Wake up" to have your daily morning alarms pair with gradual brightening. Make sure to enable Gentle Wake Up on the same Google Home device you’ll  set your alarms on.
• "Wake up my lights." You can also say, “Hey Google, wake up my lights in the bedroom at 6:30 a.m.” This will start to gradually brighten your Philips Hue lights at the time that you set and can be set up to 24 hours in advance. 
• "Sleep my lights." You can also say, “Hey Google, sleep the lights in the living room.” This will gradually start to dim your Philips Hue lights and can be programmed up to 24 hours in advance. 

The Gentle Sleep & Wake feature is available in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Singapore and India in English only. For other ways to wind down at the end of the day, you can also tune out noises from street traffic or construction next door by saying, “Hey Google, play white noise.”

Put your mind to bed

With Headspace on Google Home, you can try out a short meditation or a sleep exercise. Just say, "Hey Google, tell Headspace I'm ready for bed.” You can also say, “Hey Google, I want to meditate” to get recommendations like healing sounds, sleep sounds and more.

Cook healthy recipes

Cooking is easy with Google Home’s step-by-step recipes, and the convenience of a screen on Google Home Hub means that I can search for healthy family recipes and save them to “My Cookbook” for later. Use your voice to browse millions of recipes, get guided cooking instructions, set cooking timers and more.

Get some exercise

Use your Google Home to play your workout playlist, set alarms for working out or cast workout videos from YouTube to your TV with Google Home and Chromecast. If you’ve got a Google Home Hub, you can also watch workout videos right on the device. Try “Hey Google, show me barre workout videos” to get started.

Read more books

With Audiobooks on Google Play, you can buy an audiobook and listen to it on Google Home. Say, “Hey Google, read my book” to listen to your favorite audiobook hands-free with the Google Assistant. You can also use the Assistant on your phone to pick up where you left off. You can say, “Hey Google, stop playing in 20 minutes” to set a timer for bedtime reading each night, or multitask by listening to a book while tackling laundry or doing the dishes.