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How will my Web Stories appear in Google?
How will my Web Stories appear in Google?

Discover how your Stories will look on Google and how you can make them appear in Google Discover.

Henri Pauwels avatar
Written by Henri Pauwels
Updated over a week ago

All the Stories that you publish and that are indexed by Google are AMP compliant and will—at least—look like this in mobile search results. This applies to all regions and languages where Google Search is available.

And like this in mobile image searches.

Note the Web Story icon on the poster images of the search results. They indicate that the result is a Web Story that is cached and preloaded. Clicking on the result will instantly open the story in full bleed on phones.

Here is the official documentation for the rules and limitations.

If you want to check if your story is truly AMP compliant, copy the link of your own Story and test it in the Google Search Console validator.

Don't forget to click on "preview results" to see it with your own eyes.

Web Stories can be displayed in:

  • Google Discover

  • Google Search

  • Google Image Search

Web Stories with content that is relevant to the search query, will show up in these channels in the format shown above.

At the same time, Google is rolling out highly performant presentation formats for Web Stories in a growing number of markets by means of their Google Stories product.

Stories.google

This is the official website of the Google Product. Remember that Google transferred their IP for AMP to the OpenJS Foundation.

This means that Google had to create their own product on how Web Stories will show in Google searches. They decide when and how your Story will be visible.

The presentation format also depends on language and location.

⚠️ There are limitations and strict rules to comply with if you want your Story to show up as a Google Stories product:

  • You're not allowed to have copyrighted content

  • You must have less that 180 words of text per page

  • You must have high quality assets

  • You must have a strong narrative

  • You're not allowed to have incomplete Stories (missing links)

  • You are not allowed to be overly commercial

But let's have a look at a breakdown for all 3 places where you Stories will be visible, and more importantly, when & how they will be visible

Google Discover

My Stories to appear in a huge carrousel. That's already the case in the USA, Brazil and India.

Here is the official documentation for the rules and limitations.

Here is what Google says about these carrousels.

Carousel on Google Discover: Web Stories can appear on Google Discover on Android and iOS via the latest Google app in the form of a carousel near the top of the feed. The carousel is available in the United States, India, and Brazil.

The example Web Stories carousel is geared towards lifestyle content. Some examples of other carousel categories are: Beauty, Fitness, Celebrities, Wellness, Entertainment, and Opinion.

My Web Stories show up in Google Discover as a single card. This is currently only available in English in the US.


As mentioned above, Google will present your Stories as follows.

But Web Stories can also be show in a grid. This is already the case for English in the USA.

Here are the rules when your Stories will be shown in a grid.

Web Stories can be included in a grid view on Google Search. When people search for "things to do in New York", the grid view shows Web Stories from multiple publishers. When people search for a specific publisher, the grid view shows only Web Stories from that publisher's site. The grid view appearance is available in English in the US.


Google Image

As mentioned above Google will visualise your Stories as follows in the Image Search in all regions and languages where Google Search is available.

Alt-tagged images from your Stories will be visible in Google Image Search. If you click on the image, the visitor will have the option to swipe up and view your Story.

This is all that we can say at the moment. What we know is that we are fully compliant and it's a matter of waiting for Google to release their products around the world.

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