Google Fixes Bug In Discover Experiment
Google has fixed a bug in a Discover experiment that disabled clicks on sources, according to Search Engine Journal. The issue has been resolved and the experiment has been turned off.
Original reporting · searchenginejournal.com
Original: “Google: Disabled Discover Clicks Were A Bug In An Experiment via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern”
Read “Google: Disabled Discover Clicks Were A Bug In An Experiment via @sejournal,…” at Search Engine Journal →
How this was written. CTCV wrote this article with a language model from Search Engine Journal’s reporting (model: @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast); it describes that reporting rather than adding to it. The original, linked above, is the full story.
Key points from Search Engine Journal’s report
- Google has fixed a bug in a Discover experiment that disabled clicks on sources.
- The experiment has been turned off and replaced with a new one called 'aio tap falls through to hero'.
- The issue may have affected the Discover Generative AI Report in Search Console.
- The resolution of the issue and the introduction of the new experiment may be of interest to website owners and SEO professionals.
- Google is continually working to improve and test its Discover feature.
Google has resolved an issue with its Discover feature that prevented users from clicking on sources, according to Search Engine Journal. The problem was reported by Damien Andell, who researches Google Discover, on October 23. Rajan Patel, VP of Engineering for Search at Google, confirmed that the issue was a bug in a Discover experiment.
Patel stated that the experiment has been turned off and the experience works as intended again. However, the details of the experiment, including what it was testing and how long it ran, were not disclosed. The issue was reported after Andell found a flag called 'disable_aio_sources_button_tap' that stopped taps on the sources at the bottom from opening the article feed.
Andell had reported the issue after noticing that tapping a summary's sources no longer opened a feed of articles from those sources. He provided screenshots of a Fox 9 video from YouTube that appeared in his Discover feed, showing a brief summary underneath the video and a series of icon links below it. The icon links were labeled as 'Sources'.
After Google's reply, Andell checked again and found that the experiment had been removed and replaced with another one called 'aio tap falls through to hero'. However, the details of the new experiment, including how it works and where it is running, were not explained. The replacement experiment may have different effects on the Discover feature.
The issue with the Discover experiment may have affected the Discover Generative AI Report in Search Console, which reports how many times users see links to pages in Discover through generative AI capabilities. The report lists each source page by URL and provides an 'Impression' metric, which represents when someone sees a link to a website via the generative AI in Discover.
The resolution of the issue and the introduction of the new experiment may be of interest to website owners and SEO professionals who use the Discover Generative AI Report to track their website's performance. Until more information is available, users can check the Discover feature to see how it works.
The fix for the bug and the introduction of the new experiment are part of Google's ongoing efforts to improve and test its Discover feature. Search Engine Journal reported that Google is continually working to enhance the user experience and provide more accurate results.
Questions and answers
What was the issue with the Discover experiment?
The issue was a bug that disabled clicks on sources, preventing users from opening a feed of articles from those sources.
How did Google resolve the issue?
Google turned off the experiment and replaced it with a new one called 'aio tap falls through to hero'.
What is the Discover Generative AI Report?
The Discover Generative AI Report in Search Console reports how many times users see links to pages in Discover through generative AI capabilities.
