Google now showing more results per domain
Over the recent weeks Google has begun to show up to four results based on brand type searches. In the past Google used to show no more than two results for a query. The only real exceptions were if you performed a domain name search i.e. Amazon.
The reason for this according to Google is that the change was based on user behaviour or searcher intent i.e. if a user shows a strong interest on a particular domain then they will return more results from that domain (does this mean that searchers are now so ingrained to use Google to do a brand name search that this is now preferred over typing in the URL directly? Thats a topic for another day).
Google have provided the following quote that states:
“As before, we still provide links to results from a variety of domains to ensure people find a diverse set of sources relevant to their searches. However, when our algorithms predict pages from a particular site are likely to be most relevant, it makes sense to provide additional direct links in our search results.”
So based on a perceived user intent, Google may choose to serve up to four pages/results in the SERPs for a single domain.
What does this mean for you?
Well firstly if you are around the bottom of page 1 say 8th or so you may now find yourself on page 2 for a term that you used to rank on page 1. This is due to Google still displaying 10 results per page so effectively positions 1-4 belong to the brand (with search term) with positions 5 – 10 given to competitors. And given that Google has also rolled out the “more results from” option the search landscape becomes incredibly small if you are a competitor.
Secondly if you are the site owner it now means that you have new opportunities to display content ad to this Googles new site preview tool this means you could have offers on the destination page in the form of images to intice customers click through onto the site
So what can you do to make sure you are doing the best for your brand?
- Optimise around your brand, keep it simple things like making sure you brand name is on the ALT tag of your brand logo or brand name when or whereever it is featured on the site.
- Make sure Title tag contains your brand name for every page.
- Got a site wide address footer? Make sure your brand name is at the top of the address.
One other option is to associate your brand with keywords as the screenshot shows that working well i.e. hilton + london.
It is early days for the extended brand search results so only time will tell how effective some of the methods mentioned above work. But it does seem to suggest that when you are optimising for natural search it maybe all well and good wanting to appear no1 for your holy grail term, but the message from Google is clear; don’t forget about your brand.
