Google Search changed how many stories it shows for political figures recently. Now Google shows the two by two top stories grid in search for searches on Harris, Trump and other political figures. Google use to show 7 top stories formats for these figures.
This change was spotted by Will Flannigan, the SEO Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He wrote on X a few days ago, “Is anyone else noticing a lack of 7 position news boxes on desktop for candidate and election-related queries? Here’s a quick survey this morning.”
I gave it a couple of days, and yes, it seems to be the case. Here are some example queries I took recently:
Compare that for a search on Joe Rogan where you get a different look:
Or Mr Beast:
