Much of the U.S. is currently gripped with election fever thanks to the ongoing political debates with both the Democratic and Republican parties. In fact, Google also seems to have been gripped by the same election fever as over the last couple of months they have been rolling out a number of new features and especially in regards to Google Search. Much of those features are designed to keep the public better informed on those who are running to be their party’s presidential nominee.
Following on from the previous updates and Google has today announced another new feature making its way to Search. Back at the start of February, Google announced that Search was now able to display far greater information on the candidates and as an extension of that feature, the latest update sees Search now able to offer even more detailed information on the candidates and especially on their funding. The topic of funding has become a big talking point in the current election cycle and Google has teamed up with the ‘Center for Responsive Politics’ to offer this latest update. Now, by searching for any of the candidates along with the word “finance” will bring up a breakdown of the candidate’s campaign financing, including more detailed information like how much of their funding comes from SuperPACs and how much from individual donors. Likewise, the information will also provide an oversight as to whether certain big industries or companies have also contributed to the campaigns of select candidates. While searching for the candidate name along with the ‘finance’ keyword will show the results in a more prominent view, it seems simply searching for a candidate by name alone will also now display campaign finance information, albeit in a less prominent position (right hand side of the results page) along with a link for more detailed coverage.
As well as the campaign financing information, Search is also now able to offer even greater trending information for the candidates, so you can see exactly how well one candidate is doing against another, in terms of trending. This includes how the candidates are being searched for (search term wise), which again may offer an easier route to finding out information that you did not know before about a certain candidate. According to the announcement from Google, the changes have gone live today and should be good now for those who would like to check them out.