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ON POLITICS
The Road to 2016

Google tests new search result for content generated by campaigns

Paul Singer
USA TODAY
A mock-up of how campaign-produced content will appear in Google's experimental results page.

Google is giving candidates a new window into your political searches — literally.

Starting Thursday, Google is launching a new experimental feature that allows the presidential candidates of both parties to produce content that will appear in a special window on the results page when a user conducts a relevant search.

The content — text, images, even video — will appear in a carousel of eight cards the campaigns control. The cards will continually update and the older cards will get knocked off the carousel, but the older cards will not disappear from the Internet. If one goes viral, it will show up on a Google search on its own.

The content on the cards can be words, pictures, even YouTube video and GIFs that will all load "natively" on the search page without clicking a link, though the campaigns can embed a link. The result is a cascade of shareable posts and images that looks almost like a candidate's Twitter feed or Facebook page.

"We believe that what a candidate has to say is just as important as what others say about them," said Google product manager Joe Bose. "This new, experimental feature will now allow searchers to hear directly from presidential candidates right in Google search results — whether it's their thoughts on an issue, photos from a recent debate or their latest stump speech."

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The service is still experimental and Google will judge the results of the test before deciding whether to extend its use to other content providers beyond campaigns. For now, the test includes only the major political candidates in both parties.

Google will also be using the carousel during Thursday's presidential debate, which the search giant is co-sponsoring with Fox News. Google will host a “parallel debate” — anybody making a debate-related search will get a window with a selection of cards from various candidates on stage. The campaigns can update their cards in real time with responses to questions or additional points the candidate did not have time to make on the stage. The system will run for both the early debate of the lower ranked candidates and the "main stage" prime-time debate.

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