Google believes that during these times of pandemic, aside from searching for health-related concerns, the three things that are important for its users are: shopping, jobs, and recipes. Sounds about right based on our social media feed. And now Google is bringing enhanced and optimized activity cards for those three categories to help you sort through the results especially if you’ve been searching for those items before. This makes the already useful Activity Cards even more relevant to those searching for things to buy, things to apply to, and things to cook.
When you’re shopping or searching for a product, you’ll see a carousel appear on top of your search results. These are from your past searches and also from items that are featured in the pages that you visited. This should make it easier for you to compare the products you’re interested in or might be interested in. The cards contain the name, image, price, when you last looked at it, and when you click More Activity, you’ll see the ratings on the products.
With a lot of layoffs and restructuring happening, Google is seeing a spike in job searches of course. The job activity card will now show you new and relevant job postings and update you on your past searches if there are any changes. You won’t have to waste your time going through old postings and just get to the ones that may be important to you as you search for a new career or opportunity.
And for those who are staying home and have a lot of time on their hands, cooking is now an essential hobby. While you can always save that recipe you keep trying, some just search for it over and over. The recipes activity card now shows you not just the ones you’ve recently visited but also other relevant ones in case you want to branch out. You’ll also get a thumbnail preview of the recipe to get a bit more details.
The optimized activity cards seem to be rolling out to U.S. users only for now. Hopefully, it will also be available in other territories and for other users soon.