As Google’s crawling technology becomes more sophisticated and prolific with the release of Android Marshmallow, search behavior is expanding with new input methods that are more contextual and immediate than voice or text-based search.
This article is the third in a series about Android Marshmallow-related changes to the mobile search results that will impact mobile SEO strategies. The first article in this series focused on the Private Index, and the second article focused on Sponsored Google Now Cards.
This third and final article focuses on another subtle change that Google has added to the mix: Single-gesture search behavior. This is the ability to long-tap on a word or phrase from any page in Google Chrome to execute a new search. This single-gesture search functionality is currently only possible on Android devices so far, but does fit well with the goals of Google’s new Android OS.
Since Google hasn’t officially announced or documented this change to the Android Chrome functionality, we are calling it “Click to Search.” Click to Search is only available on Android Chrome, unless you have Android Marshmallow, in which case you can also use a version of Click to Search from some stock OS apps like Mail (though not YouTube, Google+, Messenger, News, or PlayStore or Calendar yet).
With “Click to Search,” Google’s goal seems to be enabling “drill-down” style search activity without requiring searchers to go back to the search result page or even find the address bar, to submit their new query. This may seem like a minor improvement in user experience, but remember, it saves searchers from having to endure extra page-loads on mobile devices, and more importantly, eliminates the need for typing to submit a search – Both very important aspects of the mobile search user experience.
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