There have been some people noticing that the Google Notes On Search labs experiment has an end date of May 2024 and thus they are expecting Notes on Search to be turned off by then. Just because it has that end date listed, it does not mean the labs experiment will end on that date.
As a reminder, the Google Search Generative Experience SGE labs experiment had listed an end date of December 2023. But then came December and Google decided to remove the date and extended SGE as a labs experiment.
Notes on Search, since it launched last November, had that May 2024 date on it. So that is not new.
So when it comes to Notes on Search, Google may decide to:
(1) Kill it off in May 2024 (2) Google may remove the date and keep it as a labs experiment
(3) Google may decide to roll it out in the main search results
If I had to guess, it will be turned off as a feature but I have no inside information on when or if that will happen.
Khushal Bherwani posted about the end date earlier this month and some have picked it up as evidence that Notes on Search will go away. I see it in articles now, I see it on social media and I hear people speaking about it at events. It might not go away in May (or it might), I just don't think we can use the end date as evidence of that because SGE had the same thing.
John Mueller of Google responded to these rumors on X saying, "Yeah, I'm pretty certain this was just a way of showing that Search Labs experiments tend to be temporary - like it was the case with what was shown for SGE."
Here are the firsts posts on this topic:
this has that screenshot saying May from last year https://t.co/QhB4GiU3BL
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) April 9, 2024
the screenshot in the web story shows the end date of may pic.twitter.com/m9sPP2ckNv
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) April 9, 2024
Yeah, I'm pretty certain this was just a way of showing that Search Labs experiments tend to be temporary - like it was the case with what was shown for SGE. https://t.co/BOGASSSwj4
— John 🧀 ... 🧀 (@JohnMu) April 15, 2024
Forum discussion at X.
