While this isn't live now in any version of Chrome from stable to Canary, work is underway to improve the way notifications through the app that originate from websites are handled on Android O by giving them individual channels.

Currently, with all Chrome versions (59 stable to 62 Canary), the app offers 5 different notification channels: Browser, Downloads, Incognito, Media, and Sites. These let you assign different importance levels and choose how each type of notification is handled by the system. But the "Sites" channel treats all websites equally, so you can't give a low importance to facebook.com and a high importance to some other site, or vice versa. The only way you can control individual site notifications is to head into Chrome's own Settings -> Site settings -> All sites, then choose the one you want and tap the Notifications item under Permissions. However, all you get are two options: Allow or Block. No granular settings, just a yes/no choice.

Chrome's current notification channels (left) and individual site notification permissions (right).

But according to this Chromium commit, changes are afoot. First, each site will have its own separate channel inside Chrome's notifications, just like Downloads and Media. And second, when you tap on a site's notifications permissions in Chrome's settings, you won't get that little window anymore, but you'll be taken directly to the site's notification channel, as the top image on this article shows. That should streamline the controls to one location: the channels.

As far as I can tell, there's no word on which versions of Chrome will implement this or how soon it's going to happen, though it looks like the code is well under development and is being reviewed. We'll keep our eyes peeled for this in the next versions of Chrome.

What do you think of this change? I'm partly happy to have more granular control over each site's notifications so I can relegate Facebook to the lowest importance (I don't have the standalone app installed but I like to know if I have a new message or mention). But I'm also worried that it's getting even more cumbersome to deal with notifications now. Would I have to set my preferences again if I get a new phone or tablet or reset my current one? Ugh.