Google has announced new initiatives to promote gender equity in sports and provide better visibility to women’s sports in search results, just in time for the FIFA Women’s World Cup™. The tech giant acknowledges the lack of attention women athletes receive both on and off the field and aims to rectify the imbalance.
To showcase more information on women’s sports, Google has expanded the coverage of women’s competitions in the information boxes on the search results page, encompassing over 380 leagues.
They have added more than 110 leagues in women’s soccer, cricket, and rugby, allowing users to easily access scores, results, live streams, and highlights. Partnerships with broadcasters and rights holders have enabled direct access to live streams and highlights from the Search results page for events like the WNBA, UEFA Women’s Champions League, Women’s Premier League in India, and Liga MX Femenil in Mexico.
Improving the understanding of sports queries is another focus of Google’s efforts. They are continually making systematic improvements to interpret sports-related queries more accurately, especially for gender-ambiguous queries. Google’s automated systems will now better understand and provide relevant results for ambiguous queries like “German national soccer team” or “India cricket captain.” Additionally, the company is taking into account increasing search trends related to women’s leagues and tournaments to ensure the system understands users’ intent.
Google is also working on creating a more inclusive experience for users searching in gendered languages like Spanish, German, and Hindi. The search results are now designed to correspond to the gender specified in the query, offering more gender-correct responses and a richer search experience.
Despite these efforts, Google acknowledges that there are still disparities in coverage between men’s and women’s sports on the web, and search results may sometimes reflect these imbalances. To address this, Google is committed to collaborating with content creators and news publishers to increase the amount of relevant, timely, and high-quality media coverage of women’s sports.
Following the excitement of the FIFA Women’s World Cup™, Google is introducing various features on Search to keep fans engaged. They offer real-time notifications, in-depth stats, and the Mini Cup Game on Search, providing an immersive experience for football aficionados and casual fans alike.
Overall, Google is demonstrating that it is focused on promoting gender equity in sports and providing its users with better access to information about women’s sports.
Images courtesy of Google
Author spike.digital