Google ending Notes on Search by end of the month

Google Notes, which launched in Search and Discover as a labs feature 8 months ago is officially ending at the end of this month.

“We’re excited to continue testing new ways to connect people to authentic, relatable voices and look forward to bringing some of our learnings from Notes into future product experiences,” Google told 9to5Google.

What was Notes. Notes gave searchers a way write their own notes on a specific search result listing and within Google Discover while also allowing others to read people’s notes on that search result listing. You can see how it works in detail in our original coverage over here.

“Our goal with this new Labs experiment is to provide access to helpful tips about an article or topic from both experts and everyday people. This not only helps you narrow in on the most relevant information, but also may help you see what worked for others who have been there before,” Brad Kellett, Senior Director of Engineering, Search at Google told us when it launched.

Going away. A Google spoksperson told 9to5Google”

“Search Labs is our testbed for bold experimentation and as we’ve shared, not all experiments will launch broadly. We’ve seen in our research that people want to hear from others like them and Notes was an exploration of how to help people share their knowledge right on Search. We’re excited to continue testing new ways to connect people to authentic, relatable voices and look forward to bringing some of our learnings from Notes into future product experiences.”

Notes initially had a labs end date of December 2023 and then Google changed it to say “ends soon.” So it took another several months to officially end.

Why we care. If you were one of the few searchers that used Notes in Search and Discover, you have until the end of August to download those to your device using Google Takeout.

A lot of people didn’t think Notes in Search was a good idea, but Google is not afraid to test theories and features and when they prove to fail, remove them and try something new.