Google is quietly testing trending topics section for mobile search

It appears Google is quietly testing a new feature on mobile that shows trending search topics from within the search bar.

Similar to Facebook and Twitter’s trending topics section, I recently spotted popular searches populating on Google in my Safari browser on iOS.

After typing a letter into Google search, a drop down menu appears with a list of trending searches. In the photo above, you can see what people were recently looking for over the weekend, from which channel the MTV Movie Awards were on — oh, irony; clearly, it was clearly on MTV! — to news about Anderson Cooper’s mother. Selecting one of the topics will bring you to a collection of news articles about the topic.While the feature was working up until this morning, it recently disappeared from my search bar after I cleared my search history for some screenshots I wanted to take for this story. 

Google has not yet responded to a request for comment, but with no real mentions of the feature on social media sites, it’s possible Google is testing it among a small pool of users.

Google’s move into this territory doesn't come as a complete surprise. As platforms like Facebook and Twitter roll out new ways to entice its users to stay engaged, Google likely wants to highlight perhaps what it knows best — what people are searching for and providing relevant information — and encourage users to stick around longer.