As the primaries heat up in the race to see who will be in contention to become the next U.S. President, Google is now surfacing more information about the candidates directly in the main search results page.
While Google already showed some details like candidate statements on topics such as taxes, national security, and immigration, it's now teamed up with data company the Center for Responsive Politics to show key funding information, while it will also display trending charts that demonstrate how popular the candidates are in terms of Google searches.
So now if you search for “Donald Trump campaign finance,” you’ll see something like this, with a breakdown of how he has been funded and what industries have provided the money. It will also provide comparative statements, such as: “Trump has raised $69.0M less than Cruz, who has the most in the race.”
Above: Trump Finance
Besides the usefulness of the tool itself, it’s one more step towards Google becoming the primary destination for content and information, rather than a gateway to third-party sites. While the results page still serves up links to other sites, if the core information that you’re looking for is right there in the search results, why click on third-party websites?