New Middle Of The Page "More Results" Experiment On Google

[GoogleGuy]

Moldarin, I'm not sure what aspect of the image you're talking about? What's unusual in that snapshot?

Barry, I didn't scroll far enough down the page--my bad; sorry about that.

[dannysullivan]

Moldarin, I'm guessing you're wondering if those indented results, the third and fifth site listed, are related to the experiment. If so, no. That's traditionally how Google has done things. Occasionally it sees more than one page from one particular domain that it thinks might be good for the first page of results. In this case, it shows the first page from the domain, then indents the second page and invites users to see more with the More Results link. See this page at Google for an explanation: http://www.google.com/help/interpret.html#O

In this new page, rather than indent one single result, Google may indent several results and not show descriptions for them. See the screenshot above. Listing number 1 shows experimental indented results. Listing number 3 shows a traditional indented results.

By the way, no one has mentioned the numbers as another big change. Google hasn't numbered its results in the past. I like the numbers. Makes it easy when you want to refer to something you've seen in the results. How about an email results option, as well?

Personally, I've grown to hate the indented results. It annoys me that sometimes, I might get only five web sites per page, with the indents taking space that might let more variety in place. It annoys me worse that when I click on the next page of results, I end up seeing some site again.

For example, try this, http://www.google.com/search?q=gps

Third site listed is trimble.com/gps/. Go to the next page, and you get trimble.com. Hey, if I didn't like trimble the first time you showed it to me, I don't like it the second. It gets a chance on the first page, and you should put up the very best page. That second page also repeats listings from the gpsw.co.uk and garmin.com domains, as well. I want variety.

The easy searcher side solution is to view 100 results at a time. I highly recommend this to people. Then you really will only get up to to results, because Google does "site collapsing" or clustering like this on a per page basis. IE, it looks at each individual page of results, sees all the pages it's contemplating putting on that page, then rolls up any duplicated domains. If you view 10 results at a time, clustering happens for each differnet page. View 100 results, then it happens across everything on that particular page.

I don't do this personally because I need to see what a typical person sees as part of my writing. Otherwise, I'd be there.

[DaveN]

Danny said :

The easy searcher side solution is to view 100 results at a time. I highly recommend this to people. Then you really will only get up to to results, because Google does "site collapsing" or clustering like this on a per page basis. IE, it looks at each individual page of results, sees all the pages it's contemplating putting on that page, then rolls up any duplicated domains. If you view 10 results at a time, clustering happens for each differnet page. View 100 results, then it happens across everything on that particular page.

DaveN says ... open the clustering right up

http://www.google.com/search?&q=daven&num=100&filter=0

DaveN

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

we use that image access code thing, to stop all those spammers.

Thats just Google being blocked. Many systems does that
In fact, I had to set up my spam filters to whitelist all from google.com to even get private emails from Google employees get through LOL

[Rob]

Danny

The numbers are my greasemonkey extension - sorry about that

[Jeff Martin]

Im assuming that the unique href code that doesnt go directly to the Amazon site is for evaluating this concept:

<a href="/url?sa=U&amp;start=1&amp;si=0&amp;q=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/540744&amp;e=10342">Baby</a>

This concept would shake the real estate values of the page up considerably if this type of result would happen much more frequently than the additional 2nd (indented) result.

It would interesting to understand the dynamics...not that we'll get a whitepaper anytime soon.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

not that we'll get a whitepaper anytime soon.

So, you are telling me you did not get your copy yet?

[dannysullivan]

The numbers are my greasemonkey extension - sorry about that

Ah, thanks. That's the hard thing when Google experiments quietly. You have no idea if they are doing it, if it's spyware or whatever.

Dave, you added on the &filter=0 parameter to override the regular default clustering of up to two pages per site, right? Slick -- just hope they never make that the default. Well, I'm sure some do

[DaveN]

Dave, you added on the &filter=0 parameter to override the regular default clustering of up to two pages per site, right?

yep. thats what I did... i had the &filter=0 to everything Google and &dups=1 in yahoo

DaveN

Long time reader, first time poster...

I had to. Just have to give the GoogleGuy some good critic about their UI experiments (since he ran away from some other forums).

First and foremost - WHY are you guys exeprimenting with the interface?!? After your last update, you should have 100% of your force experimenting with the quality of the results! And if you are going to do it, at least do it right (talking about the "simillar results" snippets, half cut-off, looking like an adware).

Giving the #1 guy the next four spots - big mistake - very bad for the divercity of the search results. You should stop looking into "Yahoo's tools" - they tried to personalize their search because it was easier then cleaning their results. So they simply left this to the user.

GoogleGuys - if you would like to "personalize and improve the results" just make sure that when I search for "how to load a staple gun" I get relevan results...

No, just go ahead and search for "how to load a staple gun" to see how important is the UI and how "on target" your search results are...

[sucker12b]

Look at this.

I typed Business 2.0 in Google's search pane.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=business+2.0

Business 2.0 :: Business News, Technology News, Innovation - 12:00pm
Business and technology news from Business 2.0 magazine updated daily along with
investing, marketing, research, company news and information including ...
www.business2.com/ - Similar pages

Current Issue - Web Guide - Magazine Archive - Cheat Sheets
More results from www.business2.com »

It looks like Current Issue, Web Guide, Magazine Archive, Cheat Sheets resulted from Google Sitemaps program. Or Google's recent attempt to index subscribed pages? Or by Google Print?

[dannysullivan]

sucker12b, I merged your post over with this preexisting thread, which explains what you are seeing. However, it seems much more consistent now. For several searches (amazon, ebay, cars), I was able to see this happen to the first result. Could be that I'm one of the lucky ones being targeted this way via my IP address. But if others are seeing, then perhaps the former test is becoming more of a new feature.

[Rob]

I think it is, because I am seeing similar results to the first one's posted, however the additional results aren't displayed quite the same. They are now displayed like this below the main result:

Law Message Board - Live Chat with Lawyers
Criminal - Contact a Lawyer

[esoos]

Those subpage results seem pretty ubiquitous by now:



The question, of course, is how can one get their site to appear this way in Google? What is Google looking for? So far I've only seen it on PageRank 6 pages or greater, but there are also many high-PageRank sites that are not getting this treatment.

[webmama]

Has this been covered? Google is showing the following result:

Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing & Online Meetings: WebEx ...Video Conferencing, web conferencing, teleconferencing and online meetings services created for today's enterprise by WebEx Communications, Inc. [WEBX].
www.webex.com/ - 51k - Aug 11, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages
Buy WebEx - Meeting Center - Support Center - Training Center
More results from www.webex.com »

The second to last line is a series of links to top pages on the site. I am guessing from the URL of one of those links this has something to do with sitemaps. http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start...rning-svc.html

Comments, confirmations, etc welcome.

Barb

[webmama]

Well - I guess I just proved that other search engines/directories can do SEO as well. The WebEx top result in organic for all of 10 seconds - no one else seemed to be able to see it - came from webex's business.com campaign. All the more reason to not just do Google PPC.

[L]

I noticed that too. It seeems to be happening maybe for top search results on searches for certain companies - but not all...?

When I look right now, searches for Adobe, About, CNET - all turn up with their respective company listings at the top of results with those supplemental links underneath.

Some company searches though dont show this, for example Macromedia, Sony, smaller companies too...

I dont see the pattern.

Would the referral logs show traffic from these supplemental links as the regular google.com referrers? I imagine there wouldnt be any difference - so how to know if your visitor came from one of these clicks?

[Rob]

I noticed these earlier in a different format:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...ead.php?t=6751

since then they've changed to what you are seeing now. I've seen it on quite a few different SERP's

[dannysullivan]

I merged the four recent posts above into this thread, to updated it with these further observations.

[searcher]

I've been using FF for almost since their beginning. And I have freaked out a few times becuase I was disappearing in google listings - even my adwords. However when I check using IE all is normal and looks like I am back from the dead (almost literally with regard to FireFox)! Gee's! To thin of the time I have wasted trying to fix something that was not broken!

Losing faith in FireFox.