After giving a formal warning in May about dropping emoji search support, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has silently shunned the service over the weekend. Now, people using Google search will no longer be able to find search results displaying emojis.
The move can comes as a setback to a number of websites and apps, which have been aggressively embedding emojis on their pages in a bid to top the Google’s search results.
Moving against the trend
But, it seems that the search engine giant is not in favor of letting websites amass popularity on the basis of pictographs or emojis. The new change will not penalize the websites using emoji as they will continue to list on Google search results without the emojis. Google had earlier hinted about discarding emoji support during a Hangout in May.
Experimenting with emojis
Google’s action sits in contrast with those of other search engines such as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Yelp Inc (NYSE:YELP). Both Bing and Yelp continue to return results for emoji based search while Microsoft has gone ahead announcing the addition of emoji symbols to Windows 10 software, which is expected to launch by the end of this year.
However, Microsoft said that it will roll out its own launch of emoji characters instead of using the standard emojis used across social media platforms.
Yelp has a unique feature attached with emojis that allows users to search for nearby restaurants, bars or related places through the use of emojis. For example, a car emoji will return the result of nearby car washes and garages.
Emojis were initially rolled out for mobile search, but it made its way into desktop search just a few months ago.
Google might have pulled the service, but many brands still like the emoji concept, which push them to experiment with it. For instance, Domino’s has recently added a new feature that will let customers order pizza instantly by tweeting a pizza emoji to them.
Sources: thenextweb, dailymail.co.uk
