Google’s iOS App Now Drives Traffic Back to Search via Links on External Sites

A new Google iOS feature redirects users to Google Search when they click on links on external websites.

The new feature called “Page Annotations” has been introduced to the Google app for iOS by Google. Using this function, which “extracts interesting entities from the webpage and highlights them in line,” as Google puts it, It basically makes links that the owner of the website didn’t put there on websites that you’ve visited using Google’s browser. As soon as you click on one of these links, a Google search for the specified term will launch, overlaying the third-party website in a pop-up window.

According to Google, website owners will be able to opt out of the function through a form. SERoundTable notes that the feature is now live, but that opting out can take up to 30 days.

Earlier this year, Google unveiled a new AdSense ad format that achieves a similar goal, transforming the content on the webpage into an ad that opens in Google Search.

Google is getting a lot of attention for having a tight grip on the search market. Google Search has been called a “monopoly,” and the US Department of Justice wants Google to sell Chrome and do other things to fix the problem.