Google Discover on desktop now available in some countries

Google Discover started rolling out on desktop to the Google homepage in New Zealand and Australia. And we’re getting our first look at it.

• We learned Google Discover is coming to desktop last month. Perhaps this will be among Google’s announcements at I/O, which takes place May 20-21?

What it looks like. Here’s a screenshot of Google Discover from New Zealand that I am able to see:

Why we care. This is potentially good news for publishers – especially those that have lost traffic due to AI Overviews and generative AI in the last year. Publishers that get their content into Discover can get massive amounts of traffic.

The links. These were shared by Damien Andell on LinkedIn. I was only able to see Discover on two of these five links:

• https://www.google.com/?gl=tk: Tokelau, a dependent territory of New Zealand
• https://www.google.com/?gl=bf: Norfolk Island (Australia, doesn’t work for everyone)
• https://www.google.com/?gl=hm: Heard Island and McDonald Islands (Australia, doesn’t work for everyone)
• https://www.google.com/?gl=nz (New Zealand)
• https://www.google.com/?gl=au (Australia)

Reaction. Nicola Agius, SEO and Discover director at Reach PLC, shared a couple of the early differences of Discover desktop vs. mobile she noticed on LinkedIn:

• “Images are less prominent on desktop – curious to see if that changes, as it did on mobile.
• Discover desktop previews the first sentence of every article – something we don’t see in the mobile version.”

Dig deeper. Google Discover optimization: A complete guide

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