Google is Testing Instagram-like Stories in Search Results

Google is test­ing its own ver­sion of the sto­ries fea­ture pop­u­lar­ized by apps like Insta­gram and Snapchat.

Called AMP sto­ries, this new for­mat will allow pub­lish­ers to post tap-through pieces that can be linked to from any­where else on the web. That’s where AMP sto­ries sets itself apart. Unlike Insta­gram and Snapchat, where sto­ries must be viewed with­in their ecosys­tems, AMP sto­ries are just like any oth­er piece of con­tent on the internet.

AMP sto­ries behave this way because they are HTML web pages built on the tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture of AMP. This enables them to be indexed by Google Search on mobile and ren­dered instant­ly, but it also means pub­lish­ers will have to host each AMP sto­ry on their own site.

With AMP sto­ries being host­ed on a publisher’s web­site it also means they can last for­ev­er on the web, if desired. Google aims to make the whole process easy for pub­lish­ers with lay­out tem­plates, stan­dard­ized UI con­trols, and com­po­nents for shar­ing and adding fol­low-on content.

AMP sto­ries can includes images, videos, and text, and are avail­able for every­one to try on their web­sites as of today. A tuto­r­i­al has been cre­at­ed with infor­ma­tion on how to get started.

Ini­tial­ly, Google will start index­ing AMP sto­ries in search results on a lim­it­ed basis. Only sto­ries from the fol­low­ing pub­lish­ers are cur­rent­ly being dis­played in Google Search:

• CNN
• Conde Nast
• Hearst
• Mash­able
• Mered­ith
• Mic
• Vox Media
• The Wash­ing­ton Post

Google has plans to expand AMP sto­ries across search results at a lat­er date, as well as bring the new con­tent type to more of its products.

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