Google has upgraded the built-in tool that shows up in search results for the query “mortgage calculator.”
Now, the tool has many of the key features that were missing from the previous version of Google’s mortgage calculator.
The upgraded mortgage calculator was first spotted by Kevin Indig, who shared a screenshot on Twitter:
Goodbye, mortgage calculators.
Hope Google gets a lot of backlinks. pic.twitter.com/BgUGpYsZbj
— Kevin_Indig (@Kevin_Indig) November 30, 2019
Google’s mortgage calculator was first introduced in 2015. For comparison, here’s an example of what it used to look like. You can see how it was missing some of the features that have now been added such as initial down payment and property taxes.
While Google’s goal with its built-in tools is to make search results more helpful, a more robust mortgage calculator will also serve to further detract traffic from web pages that organically rank for the same term.
One must wonder how much traffic banking websites, or sites like Zillow, are losing from searchers who use Google’s tool versus clicking through to their web pages working on the first page.
