Finding events online just got easier. Earlier this week, Google announced changes to the way events are displayed in mobile search engine results. Users searching for events using either the Google mobile app or mobile web search will no longer see a normal results page when searching for events. Instead, event related searches will result in a clear summary of activities pulled directly from event listing sites such as Eventbrite, Meetup and more. For now, this functionality is only available in the U.S. but we expect to see it rolled out worldwide before too long.
Great News For Eventprofs
Getting to the top of Google isn’t easy these days. It takes a lot of work and time for a page to get listed and ranked. For events, which in many cases go live with a brand new website, this is far from ideal. The new event search function turns things on its head, essentially by showing nothing but events. For more details on the technical aspects and how to best take advantage of the changes, take a look at Google’s developer guidelines.
Google and Events
Google has already tied its colors to the mast in terms of supporting events. Earlier this year, Google announced a comeback for events on the Google+ social network. Whether the two announcements are intrinsically linked is unclear but it would make sense for Google to incorporate their own event listing platform into the mix.
In Conclusion
The way people search and what people search for has changed drastically over the last ten years and as the leader in that field, nobody has more insight into this behavior than Google. These changes indicate that events are clearly a big deal to Google and its users and that’s a really positive sign for the future of the industry.
