Back in 2019, Google began testing and piloting showing 3D/AR or 360 images for products and other items in its search results. We even saw it being tested on desktop starting last year. Now it seems Google has rolled it out to more sites, even those sites that are not part of the pilot/beta rollout.
Glenn Gabe said on X that he noticed it showing up for one his clients that worked on AR/3D images but were not in the beta or pilot. He wrote, "We just started seeing those 3D objects show up in the SERPs. And these companies are NOT part of the beta that was set up a while ago."
I also see it showing up, even without the labels, for a lot of products in the search results:
Here are some screenshots from Glenn:
Focus on ecommerce? Seems like 3D/AR objects in the SERPs is finally expanding to more retailers that weren't part of the beta! I have some clients that have been waiting a long time for this to happen, they set up 3D objects a long time ago, have those in their merchant feeds,… pic.twitter.com/drz6moLKEo
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 12, 2024
The new help documentation is here, as a reminder, Google dropped the AR/3D early adopter program in 2021.
Google first demonstrated view in 3D augmented reality images in the Google Search results back in 2019 and since then we have seen some retailers test it out and Google also use it for cute animals and other objects. But now it seems some core retailers, like Wayfair, is showing some of their products in 3D in Google Search.
Just a reminder, Google did come out with 3D/AR technical docs for developers but removed the docs and the program about a year later. A year ago, it seemed to expand in a big way.
Forum discussion at X.
