Google.com tests a busier homepage with a row of info cards

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Enlarge / Whoa, there are cards at the bottom of the Google homepage! (credit: 9to5Google)

Check out this totally wild Google homepage experiment spotted by 9to5Google: the search page suddenly has a row of cards at the bottom. If this design is widely adopted, it would easily be the biggest google.com design change ever.

In the experiment, Google.com has a row of six cards at the bottom of the page. There's weather, trending searches, "what to watch," a stock card, local events, and COVID news. Clicking on a card will either expand it or load a search-results page. There's also a "hide content" switch, which will turn the cards off. All of this seems very similar to the Google.com app, which has a scrollable list of "discover" cards.

One of the reasons Google Search initially became popular was because the search page was plain and easy to use. The competition at the time included search engines like Yahoo and Alta Vista, which presented users with a massive wall of ads and content. Google's starkness was a major differentiator in the early days, and it's interesting to see the company toy with moving a little closer to the days of Yahoo, even if it's presenting a more modern take on the idea.

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