CONNECT WITH US
Tech

Tech

Google: Disabled Discover Clicks Were A Bug In An Experiment via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Search Engine Journal logo

Published on

Add as a preferred source on Google
Google: Disabled Discover Clicks Were A Bug In An Experiment via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Rajan Patel wrote on X that disabled source clicks on Google Discover AI summaries were a bug in an experiment that has been turned off.

Google says disabled source taps on Discover’s AI summary cards were “a bug in a Discover experiment,” and that it has turned the experiment off.

Rajan Patel, VP of Engineering for Search at Google, said so in a reply on X Monday evening. Damien Andell, who researches Google Discover, had reported the issue on Oct. 23.

Before the test, Andell wrote, tapping a summary’s sources opened a feed of articles from those sources, one path from an AI summary to the sites it cites. The morning after Patel’s reply, Andell posted that the experiment had been removed and replaced with another.

Patel was replying to Lily Ray, who had quote-posted Andell’s report the morning of Oct. 23. Patel wrote:

Hey Lily – this was a bug in a Discover experiment. We’ve turned off the experiment, and the experience works as intended again.

The reply doesn’t say what the experiment was testing, how long it ran, or how many people saw the disabled taps.

Andell wrote on Oct. 23 that Discover was testing an AI summary change that disabled clicks on sources.

He found this test through a flag called “disable_aio_sources_button_tap,” and stated that this flag stopped taps on the sources at the bottom from opening the article feed.

In his two screenshots, Andell is showing a Fox 9 video from YouTube that has appeared in his Discover feed.


Source link
Related Topics:Tech

Disclaimer

We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We TheMorningPulse.fyi want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It's possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.