Google is inserting search links into webpages in the Google App now

By Wes Davis , a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.

The Google App for iOS can automatically convert some website text into links to Google Search results, as announced in a community post that SERoundtable spotted.

Google calls the feature “Page Annotations” and says it “extracts interesting entities from the webpage and highlights them in line,” which can then take you out to Search results when you tap them — inserting links without explicitly asking the user or the site owner first. It seems like a curious move for a company embroiled in antitrust fights over both its search and advertising businesses.

Google has a form for web publishers to opt out of the links. According to the form, “the Page Annotation feature triggered on your site will be disabled within 30 days” of filling it out. Those doing so need to enter all of the variations of their site, including “www and non-www, http and https, and subdomains.”

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