WebProNews

Tag: SERPs

  • Google Rich Answers Increasing, Can You Take Advantage?

    Google Rich Answers Increasing, Can You Take Advantage?

    Earlier this year, Stone Temple Consulting released a study looking at Google’s rich answers in search. These are the results that appear on search results pages giving the user a direct answer on the page, reducing the likelihood that they’ll need to click through to a third-party site.

    Do you think rich answers are making Google better? Let us know in the comments.

    The results often appear at the top of the page, but not always. The study highlights several types of rich answers, including the “knowledge boxes,” carousel results, and rich snippet results.

    The firm has now updated the research after finding significant growth in how often Google displays these.

    This type of search result has long made some webmasters uneasy because the more Google displays these, the less people will have to find what they’re looking for on other websites, which one would assume means less referrals. Google, of course, takes the position that it puts the users above websites, so this isn’t really something the company appears to be all that concerned about. Google’s job is to give users what they’re looking for as quickly as possible, and this is one way it can do that.

    Google has been criticized for “scraping” this content from websites for years, but it’s clear that the practice is showing now signs of slowing down.

    The initial study looked at over 855,000 queries to see how many returned a rich answer box. Based on the new findings, the growth in this type of results has been about 9% since February.

    “From an apples to apples perspective, the numbers grew from 22% in February to 31% now, so the growth was substantial,” a spokesperson for Stone Temple tells WebProNews.

    They look at growth in various types of rich answers including simple ones (with no titles or pictures), those with titles, and those with no attribution whatsoever. It’s that third group that saw the largest growth (32.5%) and could make webmasters the most uneasy.

    The study points to this as growth in Google’s own raw knowledge, which includes things like public domain information and data licensed by Google, such as song lyrics, which is actually an area where third-party sites have suffered.

    The study also examines results with sliders, tabs, tables, charts, images, and forms. All of these types saw growth. Results with maps and results with list ellipses actually declined.

    The study includes some interesting case studies on specific sites whose information was used in rich answers. It also gets into tests performed by Stone Temple, which led to them getting their site included in these results.

    “A lot of the times when you see these rich answer results in the SERPs, you see very high authority sites like Wikipedia,” says Stone Temple’s Eric Enge in the study. “That leads many to believe that the Google algo for generating rich answers is based on authority. However, we took a close look at the authority of all the domains used in the rich answers in our data set.”

    “Not only are 54% of the domains used Moz Domain Authority (‘DA’) of 60 or less, you can actually see some sites with a DA less than 20 used by Google,” he adds. “So low DA is not a deal killer for having your site used by Google to generate a rich answer. Note, when Google extracts a rich answer from a third party web site, they refer to this as a ‘featured snippet.’”

    Despite the fact that these answers may drive down referrals to third-party sites, it’s still most likely going to benefit you to be there for visibility’s sake. They do include links and it’s obviously going to be better to be featured in this manner than appearing down among the rest of the results that probably aren’t even being looked at in most cases.

    In fact, case studies presented in Stone Temple’s report point to increased traffic from rich answer appearances. Still, you have to wonder if the top result would get just as much traffic or more if there were no rich answer at all.

    As mentioned, Stone Temple managed to successfully appear in some rich answers as a result of some testing. Based on this, they advise sites to follow four steps: Identify a simple question; Provide a direct answer; Offer value added info; Make it easy for users (and Google to find).

    They actually did this by creating videos that answered specific questions (but also covered “quite a bit more”), published them with full transcripts, made sure clear responses (for users and for Google) to the questions were provided, and shared links to the pages on Google+ and submitted them to Search Console. Two out of five of the pages they tried showed in just three days.

    So it can be done. Take a look at the study for much more detail on all these findings.

    Do you have content that appears in Google’s rich answers? Do you see these results as a threat or as helpful? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Image via Stone Temple Consulting

  • Google Tests Feature That Could Keep Even More Traffic From Sites

    Google is apparently testing a feature that could lead to even less clicks from users to third-party websites.

    Is Google going too far with its on-site content? Should it be sending more traffic to publishers? Let us know what you think.

    As you’re no doubt aware, Google provides quick answer results for numerous queries. These attempt to give you the best answer right on the Google results page, and often pull from third-party sites, reducing the chances that the user will click through and send traffic to the site providing the answer.

    IgniteVisibility shows a screenshot (via Search Engine Land) of a feature Google appears to be testing, which provides five different answers from the box, enabling the user to scroll through them. Here’s what it looks like:

    According to the blog, the feature is appearing on mobile, but not desktop, though this could easily change or not even be consistent with another user’s experience. We’re unable to reproduce the feature at all.

    While some publishers will be concerned about the potential for reducing traffic, one could argue that having more results in that top box could help the sites that appear in the boxes. At least they’re getting prime search visibility.

    Most will no doubt be of the former mindset, especially considering that this was already a major concern before Google started multiplying the number of answers it actually shows.

    Google doesn’t really care that much about what publishers think of such moves though. As we’ve heard the company say over and over again, they’re catering to users – not publishers. If it’s a better user experience, that’s what they’re going to go with.

    Truth be told, from the user perspective, this probably is an upgrade. Unfortunately, the information Google pulls isn’t always necessarily going to be 100% accurate, but that’s another issue altogether.

    Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable has an interesting idea about how Google could make publishers feel better about the quick answers they show. Again, Google probably doesn’t care that much, but it’s not a bad concept.

    As we recently saw, Google has been showing call-to-action links for some of these types of results when it comes from its own websites. There’s one that says “show me how,” for example that accompanies the steps for adding negative keywords to AdWords.

    Barry’s idea is that Google could give webmasters an option in Webmaster Tools to have a similar link and icon, but be able to control those things, kind of like how Google does with sitelinks.

    As it stands, some webmasters consider Google a scaper of their content when it comes to this stuff. It is possible that offering such a feature could ease some of those tensions.

    While Google isn’t typically inclined to bother appeasing webmasters’ wishes, occasionally it does deliver on requested features. It took awhile, but the Disavow Links tool is a good example of that. You never know.

    For the time being, it looks like webmasters are just going to have to continue to deal with the curveballs Google throws at them. Keep in mind, however, that this one appears to just be a test so far.

    Do you think this is a good feature? What do you think of Barry’s concept? Do you think Google would consider offering something like that? Discuss.

    Image via IgniteVisibility

  • Google Adds Call To Action Links To Quick Answer Results

    Google is showing users “Show me how” links for some of its quick answer results. Unfortunately, so far, the only examples we’ve seen point you to Google’s own content.

    Search Engine Roundtable points to an example shared by Tommy Sands on Google+, which is for the query “adwords negative keywords”. Search for that, and you’ll likely get a four-step quick answer result, followed by “Show me how”. Clicking on that takes you to an official AdWords page.

    google answer links

    A commenter on that report points to another example for “open gmail account”. This time, it gives you a link for “Go to Account Creation”.

    google answer links

    If you try a non-Google product-related search as “how to make french toast,” you don’t get links like this (at least we haven’t seen any yet).

    google answers

    The French toast example does have a link to the source site, but Google seems satisfied that it’s given you all the content you need from it, unlike with the examples from its own content, despite there being more information, like a video, on the French toast example.

    It’s clear that Google is showing more and more of these “answers,” and some webmasters are worried about losing traffic they would otherwise get from the search engine. While calls to action like those it’s showing for its own results could help with that, it’s not clear that Google is bothering with them when it comes to third-party content.

    Images via Google

  • A Lot Of First-Page Google Results Are Using HTTPS

    Two months ago, Google announced that HTTPS is now a ranking signal used in its algorithm. The company had been pushing the use of HTTPS (HTTP over TLS/Transport Layer Security) for quite some time, and called for “HTTPS everywhere” at Google I/O earlier in the summer.

    This week at SMX East Google indicated that 30% of first-page search results have HTTPS URL, which seems to say a lot. Barry Schwartz at SMX sister site Search Engine Land reports:

    Gary [Illyes] explained that while only 10% of the crawled and discovered URLs on the web are HTTPS URLs, that 30% of the first page search results contain at least one or more HTTPS URLs. So if you are looking at all the queries done on Google, 30% of the first page of the Google search results for each of those queries have at least one HTTPS URL listed in the results.

    He didn’t know why that was the case but he said it was indeed something Google noticed and wanted to share.

    Google said when it announced the ranking signal that it would be a “very lightweight signal” at least for the time being. The company noted that it would carry less weight than other signals like high-quality content. Over time, however, it said it may strengthen that signal. It’s unclear if it’s already been strengthened at all since then, but it seems a little early to have done so.

    It will be interesting to see if we get any updates on the URL percentage for first-page results from Google in the future.

    Meanwhile, Bing has apparently been mocking Google’s use of HTTPS as a ranking signal, saying they’d rather give users content they want.

    Image via Google

  • New Google Feature Could Keep Traffic From Websites

    Google introduced a new feature for search results pages this week, which displays so-called facts in the snippets of specific results. It’s yet another way of Google displaying information on a page that could mean the user doesn’t have to bother clicking through to a third-party website.

    What do you think of this feature? Good or bad for users? For webmasters? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    The feature is called “structured snippets”.

    “Google Web Search has evolved in recent years with a host of features powered by the Knowledge Graph and other data sources to provide users with highly structured and relevant data. Structured Snippets is a new feature that incorporates facts into individual result snippets in Web Search, Google explains on its Research blog.

    The company shares this example for a result for the query “nikon d7100”.

    Google is displaying little “facts” that it deems interesting and relevant, and is doing so algorithmically. Here’s another one for the query “superman” as shown on a mobile device:

    “The WebTables research team has been working to extract and understand tabular data on the Web with the intent to surface particularly relevant data to users,” Google says. “Our data is already used in the Research Tool found in Google Docs and Slides; Structured Snippets is the latest collaboration between Google Research and the Web Search team employing that data to seamlessly provide the most relevant information to the user. We use machine learning techniques to distinguish data tables on the Web from uninteresting tables, e.g., tables used for formatting web pages. We also have additional algorithms to determine quality and relevance that we use to display up to four highly ranked facts from those data tables.”

    That bit about fact ranking is interesting. We recently heard about Google’s “Knowledge Vault,” which had already pulled in 1.6 billion “facts” with about 271 million of them ranked as “confident facts”. These are the ones, which Google believes there to be a 90% chance of being true. It would seem that there is room for error.

    In fact, Google implied that there will likely be some inaccuracies with the structured snippets.

    “Fact quality will vary across results based on page content, and we are continually enhancing the relevance and accuracy of the facts we identify and display,” the company said.

    In other words, not all of this stuff will necessarily be accurate, but hopefully more of it will be over time. How often will users know when they’re seeing inaccurate information? As we’ve seen with Google’s Knowledge Graph time and time again, this has been an area of concern. At times, it has even directly affected businesses with little apparent urgency on Google’s part for correcting errors.

    On how Google collects the information for structured snippets, Pierre Far, a webmaster trends analyst at the company, said in a Google+ post:

    It’s not structured data (schema.org) driven! Instead, it’s powered by algos that try to find interesting tables within webpages to extract the key facts related to the topic of the page. This deeper understanding of the contents, plus some quality checks, gives us a new kind of snippet.

    As Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points out, these snippets mean users will have even less reason to click on third-party results, as it will mean more instant information right from the Google page.

    Unlike schema.org-driven data, Google is going out on its own and finding this algorithmically meaning that webmasters will have less control over when Google plucks such information from their pages to present “facts” and prevent clicks.

    Schwartz points to an interesting comment from a Webmaster, who said in a forum post: “Formerly, Google really distinguished itself from all other well-known properties on the web by being ‘the best place, bar none to find websites.’ If Google continues to transition from that paramount search engine to being merely ‘one of several places to find knowledge about nearly everything’ then it becomes more like Wikipedia, Freebase, Wolfram etc. And that means there will be less reason to visit Google, not more.”

    I’m not sure if I agree that people will use Google less when they’re getting information directly from it, but it could create some opportunities for other services that actually do want to help users find websites of interest.

    The fact is that we’re living in an increasingly mobile world, and along with that comes quick voice-activated searches, which is when Google’s quick answers come in most handy. When you’re on your phone, you don’t always want to have to navigate around the web. You want instant gratification.

    Google seems to value this concept greatly, even at the expense of the occasional inaccuracy, and certainly at the expense of sending traffic to other websites.

    Google has said it time and time again, but Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt reminded everybody once again a couple weeks ago: “We built Google for users, not websites.”

    He was speaking about Google’s dominant position in Europe, where the EU is awaiting the company’s latest proposal with new concessions to avoid formal antitrust charges and fines.

    Schmidt said Google is not the “gateway to the Internet as the publishers suggest,” and that “to get news, you’ll probably go direct to your favorite news site. It’s why newspapers like Bild, Le Monde and the Financial Times get most of their online traffic directly (less than 15% comes from Google). Or you might follow what other people are reading on Twitter. To book a flight or buy a camera for your next holiday, you’re as likely go to a site like Expedia or Amazon as you are Google. If you’re after reviews for restaurants or local services, chances are you’ll check out Yelp or TripAdvisor. And if you are on a mobile phone — which most people increasingly are — you’ll go straight to a dedicated app to check the sports scores, share your photos or look for recommendations. The most downloaded app in Europe is not Google, it is Facebook Messenger.”

    “Nor is it true to say that we are promoting our own products at the expense of the competition. We show the results at the top that answer the user’s queries directly (after all we built Google for users, not websites),” he added.

    He went on to say that he thinks it’s okay to rank weather sites lower and give them less traffic when Google shows local weather at the top of the page because it’s “good for users.” He said it’s the same if you want to buy something, and that if you want directions somewhere, a Google Maps result is a “great result for users.”

    Increasingly – as the new structured snippets show – Google thinks the Google results page itself is a “great result for users.”

    What do you think about structured snippets? Good or bad? Let us know in the comments.

    Images via Google

  • Google Introduces Structured Snippets

    Google announced the launch of “structured snippets,” a new feature that puts “facts” in the snippets of web results. As with Google’s Knowledge Graph, these facts may or may not be accurate.

    Here’s what they look like:

    The company says, “The WebTables research team has been working to extract and understand tabular data on the Web with the intent to surface particularly relevant data to users. Our data is already used in the Research Tool found in Google Docs and Slides; Structured Snippets is the latest collaboration between Google Research and the Web Search team employing that data to seamlessly provide the most relevant information to the user. We use machine learning techniques to distinguish data tables on the Web from uninteresting tables, e.g., tables used for formatting web pages. We also have additional algorithms to determine quality and relevance that we use to display up to four highly ranked facts from those data tables.”

    “Fact quality will vary across results based on page content, and we are continually enhancing the relevance and accuracy of the facts we identify and display,” Google adds.

    Well, that’s encouraging. Not all of this stuff will necessarily be true, but hopefully more of it will be over time.

    Image via Google

  • Google Calls Out Sites In Mobile Results For ‘Faulty Redirects’

    Google is calling out webistes with “faulty redirects” in mobile search results to save users from having to deal with the “common annoyance” of tapping a search result only to be redirected to a site’s mobile homepage.

    This occurs when a site isn’t properly set up to handle requests from smartphones. As Google notes, it happens so frequently there are actually comics about it. They point to this one from xkcd:

    Google is simply noting in the search results that the result “may open the site’s homepage,” and provides a link to “try anyway.”

    To avoid this happening to your site, Google recommends first searching on your own phone to see how your site behaves, and then checking Webmaster Tools to see if Google has sent you a message about detecting any of your pages redirecting smartphone users to the homepage. Luckily, Google is kind enough to show you actual faulty redirects it finds in the Smartphone Crawl Errors section.

    After that, Google says to investigate the faulty redirects an fix them by setting up your server so it redirects smartphone users to the equivalent URL on your smartphone site, and if the page on your site doesn’t have such an equivalent, to keep users on the desktop page, rather than sending them to the smartphone site’s page.

    “Doing nothing is better than doing something wrong in this case,” says Google Webmaster Trends analyst Mariya Moeva.

    She notes that you can also try using responsive design. Google’s full guidelines for building smartphone-optimized websites can be found here. Google also has a help center article specifically on faulty redirects here, which you might find useful.

    The new disclaimer feature is only appearing in English search results in the U.S. for now.

    Images via xkcd, Google

  • Google Uses DMOZ Description For Its Own Sites

    Last year, Google started including a feature on search results, which let you click a link and get a little pop-up card with a description about the site. The idea is that you can get a basic idea of what the site you’re about to click on is all about before you actually visit it.

    Google doesn’t offer this feature on all sites, but when it does, it often draws the description from Wikipedia, not unlike its typical Knowledge Graph descriptions.

    As Google Operating System points out (h/t: Search Engine Land), Google is using DMOZ rather than Wikipedia for its own blog, and some other sites like Android Police and Google Operating System itself.

    It also does this for its other blogs like the Chrome Blog, Gmail Blog, Webmaster Central Blog, etc. It does still draw from Wikipedia for other sites. It appears that it turns to DMOZ when no Wikipedia entry is available, though it sill leaves the feature off of a lot of sites altogether.

    Google has used DMOZ as a source of site descriptions for years, often using it for snippets when it can’t find a good one from the site itself. It’s interesting that Google is now also using it for a more recently added feature, given that the Open Directory Project has hardly in its prime.

    Image via Google

  • Are You Buying The Answers Google Is Selling You?

    Google is once again displaying some questionable content in its Knowledge Graph-style results, and displaying it as the answer to your question.

    Have you personally come across questionable content in the Knowledge Graph? Let us know in the comments.

    “We try to take parked domains out of our results…”

    That’s a quote from Matt Cutts in Google’s latest Webmaster Help video. These videos are sometimes uploaded months after being recorded, but we’ll assume that this is still Google’s policy.

    Google doesn’t have to look much further than its own Knowledge Graph-style results to find parked domains, apparently. Check out what comes up when you search for “What is guest blogging?” (a highly relevant query these days):

    This was first spotted by Andrew Steel (via Search Engine Roundtable).

    Google’s answer is: “(guest bloggers) Someone who posts an article on a blog that is not their own. Their incentive for doing so is getting backlinks to increase their own site’s search engine ranking.”

    OK. A couple things about this.

    Parked Domains

    The source of Google’s answer here is moneyonlinemaking.com/learn-terms. The link takes you to…you guessed it…a parked domain. I don’t know why I’m surprised given how often we’re seeing questionable content come up in Google’s Knowledge Graph and similar-style results.

    We’ve seen Google display inaccurate business information in the Knowledge Graph. We’ve seen inaccurate marital status information. We’ve seen it show a man’s death as occurring before his birth. We’ve seen it confuse Brandy the spirit with Brandy the entertainer. We’ve seen it accidentally display nudity. We know it can struggle with real time. During the World Series last year, some Wikipedia vandalism led to Google displaying information for the St. Louis Cardinals, calling them a “gay butt sex team”.

    Since early this year, Google has been turning to websites to fill in its gaps in “knowledge,” when providing the quick answer-style results. That appears to be what we’re seeing in the guest blogging example. As I said last month, when we reported on this, you have to wonder what the potential for error in these types of answers is, considering how often we’ve seen errors in the actual Knowledge Graph. This particular example isn’t so much an error as a biased perspective, but that’s not what these “answers” are for (as far as I know).

    How can users expect Google to provide relevantly ranked search results when it has so much trouble getting its alleged “answers” right? These are supposed to be the absolutely most relevant results for queries where they appear. If Google’s unsure, it’s supposed to offer you an alternative. For instance, if you search for “orange”, there are several things you could mean, so Google shows you this (curiously there’s no fruit option for an “apple” search):

    Having an absolute answer (as in the guest blogging example) is telling users that Google is pretty sure this is the answer to your query, which brings us to the next point.

    Questionable Answer

    Google has been sending a message to people engaging in guest blogging for SEO purposes. You know the story. If not, read this. But is guest blogging, in general, the same thing as guest blogging for SEO? No. There are other reasons to write guest blog posts (believe it or not). Not everything is about Google. Matt Cutts even acknowledged as much when he had to clarify his post about it earlier this year – the one he pointed to when announcing the penalization of a guest blog network. That happens to be the same post that Google displays as the top organic result for the query in question.

    So why would Google display this SEO-related “definition” from a parked domain in the big box at the top? Is it trying to further its own message by finding a source that matches it? Are there no other definitions out there?

    This one at About.com seems reasonable: “Guest blogging is used by bloggers as a way to network with other people within the blogosphere, grow relationships with other blog readers, and increase traffic for their own blogs.”

    That happens to be the top result, though not in direct answer style, on Bing. Bing doesn’t have a matter-of-fact definition, so it just gives you the old fashioned organic search results (god forbid), and you get a legitimate definition on the first result. Isn’t that basically how Google used to work? Isn’t the Knowledge Graph supposed to improve search? In fact, I would go so far as to say Bing wins the “Bing it On challenge” hands down on this one, displaying some nice Quora content in the side column to supplement the organic results.

    Yes, this is just on example, but as discussed above, it’s far from the only example of questionable content being thrown in our faces as “the answers” to our questions. Also, it could be some coincidence that the answer Google pulled here just happened to fit directly with its own messaging related to guest blogging, but it looks biased at the very least.

    Not all guest blogging is about “getting backlinks to increase their own site’s search engine ranking.” Sometimes people want to make a name for themselves. Sometimes people simply want to increase their exposure.

    Even Cutts said on his personal blog, “There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they’ll continue into the future. And there are absolutely some fantastic, high-quality guest bloggers out there.”

    But if you ask Google as of the time of this writing simply what guest blogging is, you’re going to be told that its strictly for search engine ranking, and told by a search engine that tries to keep parked domains out of its search results but is failing to keep them out of their own “answer” results.

    Could it be that it’s simply easier for Google to not have to determine the motives behind your guest blogging, and just wants you to not do it?

    I’ll be surprised if the answer doesn’t change soon as somebody gets wind of the articles being written about it, but either way, like the St. Louis Cardinals example, this is Google giving questionable “knowledge” at a highly relevant time.

    Update: Google has updated the the search results page that is the subject of this article. Rather than drawing from a different source, they’re no longer displaying an answer box. Now the Cutts post is the top result. As predicted, they probably saw this article or another talking about it, and pulled it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other examples out there in the wild, in which Google is giving people questionable answers.

    Generally speaking, do you trust the answers Google gives you with its Knowledge Graph results? Let us know in the comments.

  • Users Search For Specific Brands, Have To Scroll Past Competing Services From Google

    Website owners often complain that Google is pushing organic results down the search results pages by putting its own services at the top. Google’s response is something like, “You’re the corkscrew, and we’re the Swiss Army Knife.”

    One of our readers, by the way, had this to say in response, “Got it backwards google… knowledge graph is totally the corkscrew… fits awkwardly and you only need it once every 3 years or so and half the time it breaks the cork.”

    But now Google is even going so far as to put its own services in ads that appear above websites on searches for those sites’ actual brand names. That’s just messed up. Here you can see this in action with Google’s car insurance comparison tool appearing as “sponsored” over MoneySuperMarket. As illustrated in this Search Engine Roundtable article, this occurs on a an actual search for “moneysupermarket”.

    Google is also doing this on results for confused.com.

    Google launched the car insurance comparison tool in the UK in 2012, and then in France last year. Clearly they’re going above and beyond just trying to help users compare quotes, and into directly competing with specific brands that users are actually looking for.

    Remember when Google was a search engine?

    Image via Twitter

  • Google: We Use Author Rank In ‘Some Ways’

    Google: We Use Author Rank In ‘Some Ways’

    Last summer, Google launched “in-depth articles,” a section in the search results of some queries that highlights longer pieces related to the searched-for topic.

    Google’s Matt Cutts said this week (via Search Engine Roundtable) that “author rank” comes into play in Google’s search results in “some ways” including the in-depth articles section (we have to wonder what the others are).

    I guess that explains why Eric Schmidt was highlighted when the feature was first announced.

    As Mark Traphagen mentioned in the tweet above, Google’s Amit Singhal suggested author rank could come into play more in the future, in terms of regular organic search results.

    Late last year, Cutts said, “We are trying to figure out who are the authorities in the individual little topic areas and then how do we make sure those sites show up, for medical, or shopping or travel or any one of thousands of other topics. That is to be done algorithmically not by humans … So page rank is sort of this global importance. The New York times is important so if they link to you then you must also be important. But you can start to drill down in individual topic areas and say okay if Jeff Jarvis (Prof of journalism) links to me he is an expert in journalism and so therefore I might be a little bit more relevant in the journalistic field. We’re trying to measure those kinds of topics. Because you know you really want to listen to the experts in each area if you can.”

    He hinted at this even before that, last May.

    I guess they’re still working on it.

    Meanwhile, Google is reportedly testing a different, de-emphasized look for the in-depth articles section, though it doesn’t seem in line with the new broader redesign they just launched.

    Image via Google

  • Google’s ‘Promise-Breaking’ Banner Ads On Search Results Aren’t Happening

    Last fall, Google was spotted testing a big banner-style ad in search results. As we know, any of these tests can quickly become real features at any time, but it looks like Google has killed this one.

    The “banner” appeared on certain branded search results, such as this page for Southwest Airlines:

    Google said at the time that it was only a small test in the U.S. Keep in mind, Googe conducts roughly 20,000 search experiments every year.

    Still, a lot of people called out Google for this one, saying it was breaking a promise it made. In 2005, the company said, “There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.”

    Whether or not this ad could be considered a “doodad” is debatable I suppose. Either way, Google’s Amit Singhal said in a keynote at SMX West that the test is over. It reportedly ran with about 30 advertisers.

    Image via Twitter

  • Google Redesigns Search Results On Desktop

    Google has been “experimenting” with a new design for its search results pages, which gets rid of the underline on links, increases the font size, and gets rid of the colored boxes around ads in favor of a more organic look (don’t worry, they’re still labeled).

    Google regularly does these “experiments” and tests, and many of them never see the light of day in terms of a broad roll-out. This one, however, is launching to everyone now.

    Googler Jon Wiley (via Search Engine Roundtable) made the announcement on Google+:


    Here’s a look:

    What do you think?

    What’s interesting is that Google just said the other day that this design was still just an experiment. At a search conference no less. Why not just make the announcement?

    Image via Google

  • Google Officially Announces Restaurant Menu Results

    Earlier this month, Google was spotted showing new card-style menu results for restaurant searches for some users.

    One tweeted a screenshot:

    Google has now announced the feature:


    Google doesn’t go into specifics about where these menu results come from.

    As others have pointed suggested, Google may draw menu info from Allmenus.com, given that this is the source for the Menu feature on the restaurant in the first example’s local result.

    Either way, this is just the latest example of Google supplying more of the information on its own properties rather than sending traffic to other sites.

  • You Can Now Vote For American Idol Directly From Google Search Results

    Google announced on Wednesday that American Idol fans can now vote for their favorite performers directly from its search results. The company announced a partnership with Fox, which makes Google an official voting platform for the show.

    Users can search for “american idol” or even just “idol” during the voting window from Google.com or the Google Search App on iOS or Android, and will be presented with the finalists like so:

    “Add up to 50 votes per contestant. You can select your favorites and submit your picks – directly from Google. You can vote for as many contestants as you want,” says product manager Ardan Arac. “Click submit to send your votes to American Idol. Then watch Idol videos on YouTube, share on Google+, or go back and vote for another contestant if you haven’t yet.”

    The show’s live finalist performances begin tonight.

    Images via Google

  • Google Suggests You Watch ‘House Of Cards’ Online For Free At Stream-TV Over Netflix [Updated]

    Google Suggests You Watch ‘House Of Cards’ Online For Free At Stream-TV Over Netflix [Updated]

    Update: Since this was first published, Google is now showing Netflix at the top of the organic results for the House of Cards example. It has also been brought to my attention that nobody is really using the “watch house of cards” query. I guess that’s good. I really wasn’t trying to suggest that this is the way everybody gets to these shows. I just found it odd that Google would display such results for such queries. Despite its apparent low search volume, a query like “watch house of cards” doesn’t seem all that crazy to me. Either way, this isn’t how the majority of people find these shows, and it was never my intention to imply that it was.

    Google is suggesting that users looking to “watch House of Cards” check out Stream-TV.me, which is pointing users to episodes from both seasons “online free”. I’m sure you’ve encountered sites like this before even if not this specific one.

    Note: I’m adding this update in response to comments received on this article. This is Google’s algorithm dictating which results to show. I’m in no way suggesting that Google as a company is encouraging piracy.

    What’s interesting is that Google would put this as the first result for the query, ahead of Netflix itself (which is the second result). Other sites like couchtuner.eu and TVmuse.com also promising episodes online for free are sprinkled throughout the top ten, along with various videos and articles from sources like ABC and Variety. The “news” results suggest the user “watch the kinky sex scene everyone is talking about.”

    If you turn off “Search Plus Your World,” a Netflix ad appears at the top, but it’s still under Stream-TV in the organic results.

    house of cards

    I’m not sure what the personalization of SPYW is about here, by the way. Does Google know I’m a Netflix subscriber so it doesn’t bother to show me the ad when I have it enabled?

    Look how far down on the page Netflix is for Orange is the New Black:

    Similar results occur for other Netflix originals like Lilyhammer, Hemlock Grove, Arrested Development, and Derek. Netflix isn’t even in the results for Mako Mermaids:

    Netflix doesn’t make an appearance at all until page six, and that’s just a post from the Netflix Nodics newsroom, which doesn’t even work. I got through fourteen pages of results without finding a link to watch it on Netflix, which is without question the most relevant destination (at least here in the U.S.).

    How does it do on other Netflix original content like documentary The Square, which is nominated for an Oscar? Well, Netflix gets the top spot in the organic results on that one, but a Google house ad to get it from Google Play appears above that, which is interesting considering it’s not currently available on Google Play. Click it, and you’ll realize that Google is just trying to sell you a 2008 film of the same name. All of Google’s organic results know that this isn’t the film you’re looking for (and by the way, where’s the Knowledge Graph option to choose on this one?), but that doesn’t mean Google can’t try to sell you something completely irrelevant at the top of the page. Also notice the other irrelevant ad on the side.

    How about the Aziz Ansari stand-up special Buried Alive? Keep in mind, this is a six-month Netflix exclusive (which Netflix has gone out of its way to promote heavily compared to other specials). it debuted in November on Netlix, and after a six-month run, Ansari said a $5 download option would become available. Google gives you a site with a list of seventeen links to find it (SolarMovie.so) as well as another option above the Netflix link. Netflix does have an ad spot on this one, which Google showed at the bottom of the page (though I refreshed it and lost it for the screenshot).

    It’s not just Netflix content. Google has some questionable results for a lot of TV shows, though it seems to do a little better with HBO content in some cases. “Watch Game of Thrones” and “Watch True Detective” both returned HBO as the top result.

    Netflix is the obvious choice for its original shows, but it’s not even the only legitimate option in some cases. You can find episodes of House of Cards on Amazon, for example, yet this did not appear on the first page of results either.

    Images via Google

  • Google Shows New Menu Results For Restaurants

    Google is showing some users new card-style menu results for restaurants.

    Allie Brown tweeted a screenshot (via Search Engine Land):

    It would appear that this is only a test at this point, but if rolled out, this would be another instance of Google showing content to users on the search results page, making it so they don’t have to click over to another website.

    In this case, the result would be just as helpful to the business as a site visit, assuming it hopes to lure in customers with its menu.

    As others have pointed out, it’s a safe bet that Google is drawing the menu info from Allmenus.com, given that this is the source for the Menu feature on the restaurant’s local result.

  • Google Embeds Big YouTube Videos On Results Pages For Music Tracks

    In another move related to keeping users on Google properties, the search engine is now showing big embedded YouTube videos on the top of search results for a lot of song queries.

    For example, if you search for “flaming lips turning violent,” you get something that looks like this:

    Turning Violent

    Google is often criticized for doing things to prevent users from clicking over to third-party sites, and a settlement in Europe has the company adding prominent links to competitors at the top of search results on some styles of queries. Still, Google is making moves like this, and removing competitor links from stock searches.

    Google isn’t showing only YouTube videos for these music queries, however. A search for the NSFW video for The Flaming Lips’ “You Lust” returns a similar style result with a Vimeo video, though it doesn’t actually have the video embedded.

    You Lust

    It’s worth noting that this video likely doesn’t appear on YouTube due to its graphic nature, and that Google recognizes that enough to put the Vimeo link in the box, while still including a link to an audio-only YouTube video for the song in the organic results (which includes links to buy the track on Google Play, Amazon or iTunes).

    It’s interesting that Google assumes that you are looking for a video for the song you’re searching for, even if you don’t use “video” in your query. It’s so confident that’s what you’re looking for these video results completely dwarf other relevant results on the page (like lyrics, articles about the song, etc.).

    Images via Google

    H/T: SearchEngineWatch

  • Google Drops Links To Competitors In New Search Result Style

    Mutliple reports have come out showing a new style of Google result for stock searches, which add additional financial information, but remove links to competing financial sites like yahoo Finance and MSN.

    TechCrunch shares a screenshot:

    New google stock results

    That’s opposed to the old version, which looks like this:

    I’m personally still seeing the old version. I’ve reached out to Google for confirmation that this is actually rolling out to everyone and not just a test.

    If it is in fact rolling out, it’s a somewhat curious move, given that Google is in the middle of an antitrust investigation in Europe, which it’s reportedly about to settle. To resolve this, Google has offered concessions including more prominence of links to competitors’ sites in previous proposals, which were deemed to not go far enough. With this style of search result, it would appear Google is working in the opposite direction.

    It’s also worth noting that the new style is bigger, taking up more screen real estate with Google’s own property.

    Images via TechCrunch, Google

  • Here’s Google’s Knowledge Graph Being Wrong Again (This Time A Business Is The Victim)

    I’ve written a handful of times about how Google’s Knowledge Graph, on occasion, displays erroneous information. At first it seemed kind of rare, but now, I’m seriously beginning to wonder just how often this is happening.

    Rajni Singh, Associate Manager at analytics firm Mu Sigma, discovered that Google is showing wrong information for the company. Mu Sigma was founded by Dhiraj C. Rajaram. Wikipedia, which Google often uses for its Knowledge Graph info, even has it correct. When you search for “Mu Sigma Founder” on Google, however, Google tells you it’s Shailender Singh.

    Google Knowledge Graph wrong

    Notice that the “knowledge panel” on the right has Shailender Singh as a playback singer, which is accurate. How did this happen?

    Also notice all the organic results, which all have the right guy as the founder, which Google pushes down in favor of its Knowledge Graph.

    But hey, at least you can get updates about Singh, the singer, if you’re trying to find out who created the analytics firm. That’s helpful, right?

    Obviously some kind of glitch is responsible for this search results page, but it’s always fun to see Google so much space to the least relevant result and pushing down the actually relevant links.

    If Knowledge Graph errors really are rare, that’s one thing, but the frequency with which we’re coming across them seems to only be growing. It’s perhaps even more troubling considering Google is doing this with actual businesses. It makes you wonder how often it’s happening with medical and nutrition information.

    Image via Google

  • Google Adds Knowledge Graph Info To Regular Search Results

    Google has added a new drop-down box on some search results, providing information about the site the result comes from. It’s using the Knowledge Graph to provide this information.

    For example, this result from CivilWar.org provides such a box explaining that the site comes from Civil War Trust, a nonprofit organization. It even includes the founding date, and a little information about the organization itself, in this case, from Wikipedia.

    Google Knowledge Graph Results

    “As you choose the right search result for you — be that about the American Civil War or back pain — you want to know where the results come from,” says Google software engineer Bart Niechwiej.

    Google doe not display such boxes for all sites, and it’s unclear how Google chooses exactly which sites to include.

    “You’ll see this extra information when a site is widely recognized as notable online, when there is enough information to show or when the content may be handy for you,” explains Niechwiej.

    Still, there are plenty of results from well-known sites that aren’t displaying the boxes.

    Google says it expects to give more info about more sites as it continues to expand the Knowledge Graph. Let’s just hope that they also get better at keeping the Knowledge Graph accurate, as we’ve seen quite a few errors in search results. We wouldn’t want those spread further throughout the SERPs.

    Image via Google