Every search engine marketing business has a love hate relationship for Google when they make changes to their search algorithm! Google makes little changes all the time but when they post details on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog you know it could be a game changer… and this one is!
Is the change for the best or worst?
Well that depends on what end of the rope you are on, one end is awesome, the other is a disaster.
How have things changed?
Prior to this change Google would sometimes return 2 results from the same domain in its results. Now you may find 7 results from the same domain being returned for a particular search. Yep 7 out of the possible 10 on the first page! Your website may have been sitting comfortably at number 2 or 3, but now be lucky to be still on page 1!
From the Google Blog
We’ve launched a change to our ranking algorithm that will make it much easier for users to find a large number of results from a single site. For queries that indicate a strong user interest in a particular domain, we’ll now show more results from the relevant site
Google uses the following example to demonstrate the changes. A search for exhibitions at amnh previously you would see 2 results, now you would see the following:
So why have Google made these changes?
Using the above example, Google have determined that the user is likely interested in the Museum of Natural History’s website, so why not show them more results that will help them find what they are looking for faster.
How can these changes benefit you or destroy you?
I think the benefits are pretty obvious if you are getting 7 results in page 1, you will find an increase in traffic that will lead to an increase in brand awareness, increase user satisfaction that should generate an increase in responses, eg, increase in sales.
The other side is also pretty obvious – you could be lucky to be still on page 1 if your competitor starts getting 7 results on the first page. This means less natural search traffic for your website and less brand awareness created via search engine marketing, you may find that you need to spend more on Google Adwords to counter this to keep generating targeted traffic and sales via search.
Have you experienced these changes in your market yet?
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Have started to see this more in search results in the last month in google.com.au, have to say it can be a little annoying at times to see so many results from the one website if that is not the one you are looking for.