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The Switch

You aren’t imagining things. Google tweaked its search page fonts.

By
March 12, 2014 at 4:55 p.m. EDT
A before (left) and after (right) look at Google's search page. (Screen grabs by Hayley Tsukayama and Amrita Jayakumar)

Things looking a little different today? You're not alone.  Google has been making some changes to the fonts used in its search results, and it does, in fact, look different.

Google users across the Web are reporting bigger fonts in  search results and other tweaks, such as blue header links that aren't underlined. The biggest change, however, is that Google desktop ads are no longer set against a shaded box -- instead, they have a little yellow box next to them that says "Ad." Google confirmed that it has made some changes to the look and feel of its search results page.

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Not all users are seeing the new look,  but the recent uptick in interest (and complaints) about the company's changes does indicate that Google is rolling them out more widely than they have before.

Google has been working on a lot of changes to its search results during the past couple of years to make them cleaner and more appealing across multiple types of devices. In an official company blog post last year, Google's senior vice president of search, Amit Singhal, said the search engine would be improving its search products, from both a design and functional standpoint, to find new ways to save its users time. These included the announcement of future features such as voice search -- now being tested in beta for its Chrome browser -- and simple layout tweaks.

Reaction on Twitter has been largely negative, showing that we really are creatures of habit. Observant creatures of habit.

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