From the busy city streets of India to the remote islands of Samoa, Gboard helps people all over the world get their point across—whether that's through a spot-on GIF, a cute emoji or a regular text. We’re always working to improve Gboard for people wherever they are, no matter which language they’re typing in.

Today, we’re bringing Chinese (both traditional and simplified Chinese) and Korean—plus twenty additional languages—to Gboard for Android. We heard from our users that these were the top two languages we needed to add to the keyboard, and now, Gboard for Android supports over 300 language varieties (covering 74% of the world’s population). You can see the full list of supported languages here, and the new ones will be rolling out worldwide over the next few days.

Though today’s update includes some of the world’s most widely-spoken languages, we’re equally focused on making sure lesser-known languages, like Manx and Maori, are represented in the keyboard. Often, incorporating new languages leads us to meet people we might have never known—like brothers Abdoulaye and Ibrahima Barry, who we recently worked with to bring the Fulani alphabet, Adlam, to Gboard. Though Fulani has been spoken in Africa for hundreds of years, the language didn’t have its own written alphabet until these brothers invented one twenty-six years ago in Guinea. Because Adlam wasn’t on Gboard, it was difficult for native speakers to represent the true sounds of their language when they were typing. To fix this, we worked alongside Abdoulaye and Ibrahima to design and test an Adlam layout in the keyboard. We ultimately settled upon the layout that is live on Gboard today. (To learn more about the story behind the Barry brothers’ inspiring work, check out their Talk at Google, a talk from Google’s speaker series.)

Each new language helps more people express themselves with their keyboard, and we’re thankful to the thousands of linguists and native speakers around the globe who help us bring new languages to Gboard. We’ve been lucky to meet new people—like Abdoulaye and Ibrahima—along the way. There are still many people to meet and languages to discover, so our work won’t end here.

Whether you’re messaging a friend about dinner plans or reading an article on sloths, sometimes you want to search for more information without having to drop what you’re doing. Today, we’re introducing three new features to the Google app on iPhone and iPad to help you find what you need and get things done, without disrupting your flow.

Search Google and share, right from iMessage

The Google app for iOS now supports an iMessage extension to help you search and share GIFs, restaurants and videos, whenever you’re messaging a friend. You can tap on the icon for “Food” or “Nearby” to share your favorite locations, or perform a search and share a card directly into the conversation. Want to research a new restaurant before sharing it with friends? Just tap on the restaurant card, and we’ll take you to the Google Search page, where you can look up the busiest times, as well as menus and reviews. Switch to GIF Search mode, and you can find and share a “happy birthday” GIF.

If you already have the Google app on your device, no additional installation is required. Just open iMessage, tap the iMessage apps drawer, and tap on Google app icon.

Discover and explore from any webpage in Safari

Last year, we added a new way to discover related content while browsing in the Google app for iOS. Now we’re bringing that capability to any browser on your iPhone, including Safari. If you share a webpage with Google, we'll show you suggestions for related content so you can learn more about the topic--no need to type anything new into the search box. Reading up on how to grill fish? With two taps, you can jump straight to tips for keeping fish from sticking to the grill, info on the best fish for grilling, or delicious recipes. Simply tap on the Search Google icon from the share menu to start exploring.

Drag and drop to search, save, or share on iPad

On iOS 11, you can now drag and drop to quickly and easily move text, images and links to and from the Google app. If you’re reading a great article on the Google app, tap and hold to pick up the link and drag it into iMessage to share with a friend, or into Notes to save for later.

Support for the iMessage extension is only available in the U.S. at this time, but we look forward to expanding to more languages and locales soon. To try these new search features, make sure you have the latest version of the Google app.

This week, Barbra Streisand revealed that two of her canine companions are actually clones of her beloved dog Samantha, who died last year. People took to Search to find out “How much does it cost to clone a dog?” and “How does dog cloning work?” In fact, people unleashed their curiosity for “cloned dog” 1,900 percent more than “cloned sheep,” which was the first-ever cloned mammal. (Coincidentally, the sheep was named after another music legend in the news this week, Dolly Parton.)

Here’s a peek at a few other top searches from this week, with data from Google News Lab.

Weight in gold:Leading up to the Oscars this weekend, a top-searched question was “How much does an Oscar weigh?” (We’ll save you the search—it’s 8.5 pounds!). Margot Robbie leads searches for Lead Actress nominees, and Timothée Chalamet is most searched among the Lead Actor nominees. And before the ceremony, go back a few decades with the top-searched Oscar movies of all time.

Not so Golden:Search interest in “California quality of life” was searched 700 percent more than “California cost of living after “U.S. News and World Report” deemed California the state with the worst quality of life.

Listen to this: When Spotify filed to go public this week, search interest in Spotify IPO went up 4,800 percent and people want to know, “Where can I buy Spotify stock?” and “How to invest in Spotify.”

Reading 9 to 5:After donating  its 100 millionth book, search interest in Dolly Parton’s nonprofit “Imagination Library” went up by 270 percent. As a singer and philanthropist, Parton wears many hats—and her most-searched song is “Coat of Many Colors.”

When a recent study revealed that red wine can be good for oral hygiene, the searches for “red wine health benefits” poured in (it was searched 400 percent more than “white wine health benefits”). And while we’re at it, is red wine good for other things? Two of the top health-related searches for red wine were “How many carbs in red wine?” and “Which red wine makes you lose weight?” Other than red wine, the most searches for “Is [insert food] healthy?” were sparkling water, trail mix and cottage cheese.

Here’s a peek at a few other top searches from this week, with data from Google News Lab.

Olympics-mania: The U.S. Hockey team won the gold this week and people went puck-wild for Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson (search interest in Jocelyne increased more than 7,000 percent) after she scored the winning goal. Women’s Super Combined, Ice Dancing, Women’s Downhill Skiing and Women’s Figure Skating were the top searched Olympic events this week.

At the box office: “Black Panther” has been a roaring success, and people are so engrossed in its fictional world that a top-searched question was “Is Wakanda real?” Michael B. Jordan has been searched the most of all the Black Panther cast members, while Nakia is the top-searched character.

Tote-ally fashion:A $590 grocery bag-style tote from the French brand Céline was a top-searched trend that emerged from Fashion Week. Anna Wintour, who sat with Queen Elizabeth at Fashion Week, was also top of mind—search interest in the fashion icon went up 500 percent.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Here are this week's top searches for you:
The Dow is down, but a rocket went up to the skies
We're staring deeply into our valentines' eyes
While the world’s best athletes go for the gold
We met the new Gerber baby, just one year old.
Now on to the trends, before my rhyme becomes drab—
All the data we use comes from Google News Lab.

Valentine’s Day

Between flowers, a big teddy bear, a beef jerky bouquet, Valentine’s Jordans and chocolate-covered strawberries, there’s something for everyone on the list of top-searched Valentine’s Day gifts.

New spokesbaby

One-year-old Lucas Warren became a celebrity this week when it was announced that he’s the first Gerber baby with Down Syndrome. Meanwhile, another baby made her debut in the limelight: Kylie Jenner’s daughter, Stormi. Other top searched babies this week were Nick Foles’ baby, Janet Jackson’s baby, and Khloe Kardashian’s baby.

All eyes on Pyeongchang

Figure skating is the most searched Olympic sport in 46 states. The outliers are Alaska and Montana (where snowboarding’s at the top), Nebraska (where curling reigns) and Minnesota (where ice hockey wins all).

Falcon Heavy

After his foray into space this week, search interest in “Elon Musk rocket” took off, and was 350 percent higher than interest in “Elon Musk car.” People searched for famous rockets—other than Falcon Heavy—this week, too: Flat-earther rocket, Saturn V rocket, Sea Dragon rocket and Soyuz rocket.

Ups and (Dow)ns

As the markets went on a rollercoaster, search interest in Dow Jones Industrial Average was 1,700 percent higher than search interest in NASDAQ, and people were searching for “stock market” 1,400 percent more than “economy.”

When a woman’s attempt to board a United Airlines flight with her emotional support peacock was thwarted this week, the internet was up in feathers. Search interest in “emotional support peacock” flew 450 percent over “emotional support dog,” and people were also curious about whether they can bring hairspray, alcohol, batteries, perfume and candy on to a flight. And don’t exclude the other supportive animals—besides dog and peacock, top searched emotional support animals were duck, turkey and cat.  

Here are more top searches in this week's menagerie, with data from Google News Lab:

• Black History Month:As Black History Month kicked off this week, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Jackie Robinson and Malcolm X were the most searched Black historical figures. 
  
• Super Bowl (of chili): Bostonians and Philadelphians will cheer on opposite sides of the stadium, but their home states have one thing in common: chili is the most popular Super Bowl recipe. And you might expect that searches for “Super Bowl ad” spike every February, but the fast-typers among us also cause searches for “Superb Owl” to go up. What a hoot!
  
• State of the Union:Taxes, jobs, MS-13, immigration and Mexico were the top searched terms during President Trump’s speech. On the day of the speech, searches for Joe Kennedy went up 2,100 percent, “longest State of the Union” went up 3,000 percent and and “fact check” went up 2,100 percent. 
  
• Lie, cheat and Pass Go: Searches for “Monopoly Cheaters Edition release date” went up 350 percent after a new version of the game was announced, and it was searched 2,200 percent more than another popular edition: “Game of Thrones” Monopoly. 
  

Sometimes when you do a search, you’ll find that there’s a descriptive box at the top of Google’s results. We call this a “featured snippet.” In this post—the first in a new series going behind-the-scenes on how Google Search works—we’ll explore when, where and why we provide featured snippets.

What is a featured snippet?

We call these featured snippets because unlike our regular web listings, the page’s description—what we call a “snippet”—comes first. With featured snippets, we reverse the usual format. We’re featuring the snippet, hence the “featured snippet” name. We also generate featured snippets in a different way from our regular snippets, so that they’re easier to read.

We display featured snippets in search when we believe this format will help people more easily discover what they’re seeking, both from the description and when they click on the link to read the page itself. It’s especially helpful for those on mobile or searching by voice.

Here are a few examples where featured snippets enhance the search experience by making it easier to access information from good sources, big and small:

Featured snippets aren’t just for written content. Our recently launched video featured snippets jump you directly to the right place in a video, such as for how to braid your own hair:

Featured snippets help with mobile and voice search

Of course, we continue to show regular listings in response to searches along with featured snippets. That’s because featured snippets aren’t meant as a sole source of information. They’re part of an overall set of results we provide, giving people information from a wide range of sources.

People click on featured snippets to learn more

It quickly became clear that featured snippets do indeed drive traffic. That’s why publishers share tips on how to increase the chances of becoming one, because they recognize being featured in this way is a traffic driver.

When it comes to spoken featured snippets, we cite the source page in the spoken result and provide a link to the page within the Google Home app, so people can click and learn more:

We recognize that featured snippets have to work in a way that helps support the sources that ultimately makes them possible. That’s why we always take publishers into account when we make updates to this feature.

Working to improve featured snippets

Because featured snippets are so useful, especially with mobile and voice-only searches, we’re working hard to smooth out bumps with them as they continue to grow and evolve.

Last year, we took deserved criticism for featured snippets that said things like “women are evil” or that former U.S. President Barack Obama was planning a coup. We failed in these cases because we didn’t weigh the authoritativeness of results strongly enough for such rare and fringe queries.

To improve, we launched an effort that included updates to our Search Quality Rater Guidelines to provide more detailed examples of low-quality webpages for raters to appropriately flag, which can include misleading information, unexpected offensive results, hoaxes and unsupported conspiracy theories. This work has helped our systems better identify when results are prone to low-quality content. If detected, we may opt not to show a featured snippet.

Even when a featured snippet has good content, we occasionally appear to goof because it might not seem the best response to a query. On the face of it, it might not appear to answer a query at all.

For example, a search for “How did the Romans tell time at night” until recently suggested sundials, which would be useless in the dark:

While the example above might give you a chuckle, we take issues like this seriously, as we do with any problems reported to us or that we spot internally. We study them and use those learnings to make improvements for featured snippets overall. In this case, it led to us providing a better response: water clocks.

When near-matches can be helpful

For example, the original “sundial” featured snippet above was actually a response for “How did Romans tell time.” We displayed this near-match then because we didn’t have enough confidence to show a featured snippet specifically about how Romans told time at night. We knew sundials were used by Romans to tell time generally, because so many pages discussed this. How they told time at night was less discussed, so we had less data to make a firm connection.

Showing a near-match may seem odd at first glance, but we know in such cases that people often explore the source of a featured snippet and discover what they’re looking for. In this case, the page that the featured snippet originally came from did explain that Romans used water clocks to tell time at night. We just didn't then have enough confidence then to display that information as a featured snippet.

We’re considering increasing the use of a format we currently employ only in some limited situations, to make it clearer when we serve a near-match. For example, we might display "How did Romans tell time?" above the featured snippet, as illustrated in the mockup below:

Our testing and experiments will guide what we ultimately do here. We might not expand use of the format, if our testing finds people often inherently understand a near-match is being presented without the need for an explicit label.

Improving results by showing more than one featured snippet

Another format coming soon is designed to help people better locate information by showing more than one featured snippet that’s related to what they originally searched for:

Showing more than one featured snippet may also eventually help in cases where you can get contradictory information when asking about the same thing but in different ways.

For instance, people who search for “are reptiles good pets” should get the same featured snippet as “are reptiles bad pets” since they are seeking the same information: how do reptiles rate as pets? However, the featured snippets we serve contradict each other.

This happens because sometimes our systems favor content that’s strongly aligned with what was asked. A page arguing that reptiles are good pets seems the best match for people who search about them being good. Similarly, a page arguing that reptiles are bad pets seems the best match for people who search about them being bad. We’re exploring solutions to this challenge, including showing multiple responses.

"There are often legitimate diverse perspectives offered by publishers, and we want to provide users visibility and access into those perspectives from multiple sources,” Matthew Gray, the software engineer who leads the featured snippets team, told me.

Your feedback wanted

Last year, we made it easier to send us feedback in cases where a featured snippet warrants review. Just use the “feedback” link at the bottom of a featured snippet box. Your feedback, along with our own internal testing and review, helps us keep improving the quality of featured snippets.

We'll explore more about how Google Search works in future posts in this series. In the meantime, you can learn more on our Inside Google Search and How Search Works sites and follow @searchliaison on Twitter for ongoing updates.

This week, fans of NBC’s “This is Us” were fired up about a plotline involving main character Jack Pearson and a Crock-Pot. Trending questions on Search ranged from plot-related—“What happened on ‘This Is Us’ with the Crock-Pot?”—to practical—“How long can a Crock-Pot be on warm?” For those more interested in what’s cooking in their own kitchen, rather than in the Pearson family’s, these Crock-Pot recipes were the most searched this week: beef stew, vegetarian, chicken, pot roast and chili.

Here’s a peek at a few other top searches that slow cooked this week, with data from Google News Lab.

• Shutdown for what: Amidst the U.S. government shutdown this week, people searched to find out which government services would shut down as well. The top searches for “Will government shutdown affect…” were tax refunds, social security, passport processing, Post Office and unemployment. 
  
• While James Corden prepped …Others did some searching ahead of Sunday’s Grammy Awards. The most searched pop artist nominated for a Grammy was Ed Sheeran, while “Despacito” was the most searched “Song of the Year” nominee.
  
• Nobody’s perfect:When a camel beauty pageant in Saudi Arabia was interrupted due to the discovery that some camels had been injected with botox, attention shifted from the contest. Search interest in "Camel botox" spiked nearly 1,400 percent more than “Camel beauty pageant.”
  
• Cashing in:This week, rapper 50 Cent learned that he accidentally made over $7 million after people used Bitcoin to buy his album “Animal Ambition” in 2014. One top searched question—“How much did 50 Cent make from Bitcoin?”—naturally led to the next—“What is 50 Cent’s net worth?”