Google’s iOS app now injects links on third-party websites that go back to Search

2 hours ago 5

Google has introduced a new feature on iOS that injects links on third-party websites that take users back to Google Search.

Recently, Google announced new “Page Annotations” within the Google app on iOS. This feature, as Google explains, “extracts interesting entities from the webpage and highlights them in line.” Effectively, it creates links on a website that you’ve opened through Google’s browser that the website’s owner did not put there. The links, when clicked, then perform a search on Google for that subject and open the search in a pop-up window on top of the third-party website.

We’ve created a new feature called Page Annotation in the Google App browser for iOS. It extracts interesting entities from the webpage and highlights them in line. When the user clicks on the highlighted entity, it will direct the user to the search result page for this entity.

The feature, Google says, will offer an opt-out for website owners through a form. It’s pointed out by SERoundTable that opting out can take up to 30 days, while the feature is live now.

Google introduced a new AdSense ad format earlier this year that works similarly, turning text on the webpage into an ad that opens in Google Search.

This comes as Google is under intense scrutiny for its hold on the search market, with Google Search being called a “monopoly” and the US DOJ calling for Google to sell off Chrome amongst other remedies.