Google Might Expand Web Stories Roll Out if More Websites Use Them

John Mueller, the Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, said that the search engine giant might roll out Web Stories to SERPs in additional regions if more websites begin posting them.

In a recent live stream on Google Search Central, John Mueller reveals that this applies to all search features.

During the live stream, a website owner asked Mueller if there is any information about Web Stories being rolled out to the SERPs in more countries.

Currently, Web Stories are available in the SERPs in India, Brazil, and the United States. The website owner here wants to lay the groundwork for when Google Web Stories will be supported in search results in their country.

With John Mueller’s response to this question, what we discovered is website owners can themselves impact the search engine’s decision to launch search features (Google Web Stories in this case) in additional regions. They can do so by preparing ahead of time.

Let’s discuss this in detail now.

Website Owners Can Influence Changes in Google Search

Website owners can speed up the launch of new search features to their region by using them in advance till they are officially supported in that particular country.

For instance, Google supports certain types of structured data markup in a few countries but not others. There is the new Home Activities markup, for example, that is only supported in the United States currently.

If website owners in other regions begin using unsupported markup, the search engine will observe it and take this as an indication that it’s time to roll out the support for that particular markup in those countries as well.

According to Mueller, about Google activating specific features in specific countries, at times, that is a matter of formulating the policies and figuring out the technical details. However, at times it is also a matter of the team being able to audit the data from the specific country and say that too many people are implementing this structured data already; perhaps we should simply activate it for this region.

Further adding to this, Mueller said that on this subject, if website owners are enticed to try out something like this, they should go for it even if they do not see all the benefits yet.

Since this relates to Google Web Stories, website owners can anticipate a gradual roll out by making and posting them now only.

Mueller also points out that Google Web Stories do not differ from the standard web pages in terms of how web spiders crawl and index them.

The only visible change that we will see when the platform rolls out further support is the way Web Stories are shown in SERPs and Google Discover.

Any website owner in any place can make and post Web Stories currently. The search engine will still index them in search results, but they won’t be shown in the same way they are in the United States, India, or Brazil (regions where the feature is supported right now).

Finally, John Mueller said that he does not have any information on when these new features will roll out, especially Web Stories. He also explained that site owners must remember that Web Stories are normal pages, too, so they can start using them already on their website, and Google will crawl and index them just like they do with standard web pages.

When the platform begins displaying them more noticeably, site owners will see them a little differently in SERPs. They may also view them more prominently in Google Discover. But virtually, they can move forward and implement these stories already.

Wrapping It Up

Having said that, it does make sense why website owners can actually influence the changes in search and accelerate the rollout of new features in their particular locations. If site owners start using features before they are officially launched in their country, it only sounds fair for the search engine to roll them out more widely. After all, the whole point of introducing these changes and features is to offer a better experience to the users. So, if Google notices that too many people are already using features in other parts of the world, they might eventually expand their rollout. Nevertheless, there is no harm in giving it a shot. So, go ahead and try it out already.

Happy posting!