Google is justifiably tentative to change anything about how Search works. You don't just play with your core product. But today, a long-awaited adjustment is finally rolling out for news coverage that appears in Search. Google's Full Coverage feature — which first debuted with Google News back in 2018, and which the company announced was coming to Search all the way back in 2019 —is now live to help provide a bit of extra context for big stories.

The feature aims to help folks understand what's happening in the news, especially for complicated topics that are continuously changing. For such subjects, like in-development stories, you'll get a new "more news on" button beneath the topically generated carousel that opens an additional page with links to more coverage venues, further organized into categories like "top news" from bigger names and "local news" for publishers closer to you, giving you multiple angles to parse developments from.

Google can also pull long-running stories that span a greater length of time — the ongoing pandemic being a good example — and place topically related coverage that enhances context nearby. So if a big story about a subject happens, you'll also see things like explainers about prior history or earlier developments to fill out any gaps in knowledge.

In short: If you don't have time to research a subject when a big story hits, Google makes it easy to pull some details regarding background, multiple perspectives, and context.

The new Full Coverage feature is available today on mobile devices in English in the US, with other languages and locations planned later.

Source: Google