Google Tests Top Comments & Related Discussions For Forum Search Results
Google confirmed with me that they are testing a new forum display for its search results that shows the top comments and related discussions. This is a new way of showing forum-related content in the Google Search results.
You can see a snippet followed by a "top comments" section, and then "related content" section.
That looks similar to the special Reddit treatment we saw earlier this year. And with other forums before that. Also, in 2012, Google showed top answers in snippets.
Google said this feature has no ranking benefit.
Google also disclosed that it sometimes has agreements from forums to show these additional details in the interface. Maybe this is referring the Google and Reddit deal.