If you use the Google app on your iPhone or Android phone, you might’ve noticed a few random highlights appear on words or terms of interest. This is a new feature the search giant introduced—called Page Annotation—and it gives you more information on what you’re reading.
Page Annotation Gives You More Information Without Opening a New Tab
The highlight on words or phrases marked by Page Annotation does not open a new link. Instead,Google Search Helpsays that this feature launches a floating window when you tap on the highlight, showing you additional information from the Google Knowledge Graph. For example, if you’re reading about places to go to in Japan, and you see Osaka Castle in the article you’re reading marked by a highlight, you can tap on it and the Google Search app will open a floating window that will show you additional context.
“This new experience allows people to quickly get additional context about people, places, or things — without leaving the site they’re on,” says Ashwarya of the Google Search Support Team. “And when you’re done, you can easily swipe to close the app tray and you’re right back on the page where you started.”
The information on the Page Annotation is typically the same information you’ll see in the Knowledge Graph part of the Google Search result page for the same term. You could even tap on some of the links in the floating panel to find more information about it, and once you’ve satisfied your curiosity, simply swipe down to go back to the original article you’re reading. This new feature adds to some of theuseful things you may do with the Google App.
Before Google introduced this feature, to avoid leaving the current article, you typically had to open a new tab and search for the word or term, or tap and hold on a link you’re interested in and chooseOpen in new tabin the context menu.
Despiteremoving a decade-old feature in November 2024, it’s good to see that Google is replacing it with something useful. Page Annotation makes browsing more engaging without distracting you with a winding path that will take you away from what you’re originally reading. And if you do end up opening more links and going deep into the rabbit hole without intending to do so, you can just swipe down, and you’ll be back to where you started.
