Google Site Links In Result Pages

Google has been displaying site links – the linked words below a main search result that leads to internal pages of that website – for some time now. But there has been a restructuring. Now, instead of the stacked appearance of several links, in several columns, more sitelinks are being seen on one line, just four across at the bottom of the result. As such, one can expect to see more results on the results page, as there will be more room. But the ramifications don’t stop there.

For advertisers, it’s possible that paid links will become more prominent in the eyes of users. When sitelinks are stacked, it could be argued that attention is drawn to the larger real estate that the result inhabits, thus garnering more attention – and clicks – away from smaller paid ads. The larger sitelink sections might even be confused with ads themselves, as they simply look different than regular results. So, one could theoretically see a rise in clicks on PPC search ads, which could result in a more competitive landscape, or more opportunities for advertisers.

It also means that as a site owner, one now needs to pay close attention to how the sitelinks are being displayed within search results. In the past, one would see upwards of eight sitelinks, where now there seem to be no more than four. That means the choices for users are fewer, and so is the opportunity to capture the attention span of a Web surfer. While there are no official guidelines or rules as to how Google displays site links, some correlations can be found. Anchor text, page navigation, meta tags, even ALT tag text have been rumoured and seen to show up in site links. This means that internal navigation is a key element to how (and whether) sitelinks show up in the specified search results.

For now, it appears that the change is not sweeping – some results still show the older version of sitelinks and some results are using the new system. Google will continue to test and tweak, so keep a close eye out for developments

Google shutters off the AdSense video

Google AdSense video, one of the Google services offering youtube videos in the AdSense account, has been discontinued from the end of April. The sunsetting of Video AdSense is the end of a short tenure for the service. It was introduced in beta form in February 2008 as a way for publishers to increase the amount of video content on their sites and earn a little money doing it. This program allowed AdSense publishers to embed YouTube videos along with Google Text ads.

Under the AdSense program, publishers could sign up through a dashboard provided by Google where they got to choose what videos to be included in their AdSense player through a user-friendly menu. Some beneficial features were ; as Google hosted the ad, the publisher site dint get any slower. The video ads were upto two minutes in length. The users could determine how much interaction is desired with the ad. This approach took the same non-intrusive InVideo ad format used on YouTube and extended it across video partner sites on the Google Content Network. This enabled advertisers to run a single campaign across the largest network of online video content.

The program didn’t perform up to expectations or generate enough revenue. Presumably, the click-through rates were low (which dint come as a huge surprise) while consumers had become accustomed to clicking on links embedded in web pages, that’s less the case with a video. Google could not figure out a sustainable ad model for video. This latest discontinuation is a part of the growing trend of Google axing programs on AdSense. The decision reflects Google’s view that it can’t work miracles anymore as it struggles with the deteriorating economy. The resources thus freed and emptied will focus on other opportunities to help publishers earn from their sites. Considering the current scenario, this could also be looked as a move to save costs.

No doubt, the video AdSense by Google was late to market but just like Youtube’s copyright protection scheme, in the meantime has played its part of making the market smaller. As per available statistics the company increases its share of the video market every month at least in the U.S. Google assures that there will be no credit liabilities. The remainder of the Leaderboard or skyscraper video units on the publisher pages will direct users to youtube.com while other video unit sizes will automatically be changed to standard embedded youtube players. Thus publishers can still display video content on their pages by pulling embed codes directly from YouTube but will not generate any profit.

Google Universal Search

Google at its searchology press event announces a new feature called Google Universal Search. With this Google will now display results from various avenues of search on one page. People will no longer have to search images, videos, books, blogs, news and the web separately.

The components Universal Search will include are Books, Local search, Images, News, and Video. Apart from web results with top level domains, SERPs will also include listings of books, video sites like youtube, metacafe etc, news sites like google news, prweb etc, images, and results from local search.

Removal of supplemental result tag – A good news or bad news?

As I have said in my previous post, supplemental index was a garbage dump of pages that Google considered low value.  It was queried only if nothing good could be found in the main index. 

Now Google promises to pay more attention to this index. The pages in the supplemental index will be crawled at least every three months and it is reported that some time in future the Googlebot might start crawling them every month. Google also claims that they might begin indexing urls that have more parameters. This shall help your previously supplemental pages find a place in the main index, and rank better. It is a good news.

 

However, I feel that the three-month crawling interval is too long and hence any changes that you make to the supplemental indexed pages might go unnoticed for a long time. Also removal of the tag makes it very difficult for you to know which pages need some revision for it to be pushed back to main index.

Until Google adds a tool within their Webmaster Central platform to help you see your supplemental pages, there is no accurate way to know what pages of your site are in the supplemental index.

However with some intuition, you should be able to make some educated guesses of which pages are in supplemental database.

Check in Google if a page of your site has been indexed. If yes, check the cached link. If the cache date is more than a month old, it is likely that Google is not giving the page much of importance and it is quite possible that the page has slipped into the supplemental index.

How to get better of this invisible supplemental tag 

Bear in your mind that even if there is no supplemental tag ahead of the pages indexed in Google, some of these pages may be in supplemental box. Follow the below rules and do not let your pages slip into supplemental index.

ü      Write unique readable and indexable content

ü      Write unique meta tags and titles

ü      Attain some backlinks to the inner pages

ü      Avoid deep linking your pages

 

Brand Management

Don’t let your competitors drag you through mud and spoil your reputation

You might be under impression that people interested in your products or services will find you by typing a related key term in search engines, but it is wrong. They might also key in your brand name or company name to find you.  It is because your reputation. If you are already popular, people will try to find more about you by typing your company name in search engines.

 

In such a case, you need to see to it that your competitors or any of your unsatisfied customers have not posted a bad review about your services.

 

Competitors are likely to do this. If they have done it, you need to find a way to push them to a place where people may not reach. Your reputation online is very important. It is a good idea to ensure that you don’t look bad when people put your brand name or company name into a search engine.

One of the best ways of doing this is to have a plenty of web sites that talk good about your services and show up in top 10 listings of search engines for your brand or company name.

 

You can find sites that talk good about you, and get some valuable backlinks for them so that they rank in the top 10 as well.

 

A few other strategies….

 

Create blogs for your brand name. There are some blogs that allow you to create your own blogs and post some content.

 

Find forums that have topics related to your services and post your views with your brand name.

 

All these sites to rank in search engines need a few backlinks. Make sure that you make arrangement for the same.

 

Try social bookmarking a web 2.0 method of link building that allows you to save your site with a title, description and a few keywords. Include your site name in them.

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Google supplemental results – Menace to the rankings

 

 

Just as you have first class compartment and second class compartment in trains, you have first class pages and supplemental class pages in Google. And, just as you would feel comfortable in First class compartment, your company should have better position if it is listed in main result pages of Google.

 

Google Supplemental Results are same as second class compartments!

 

This is not the place where you would like your site to be. These are the pages that Google has indexed but feels, for some reasons that they are not qualified for main index. Once you are in supplemental, nobody can find you unless they are looking for something unusual and of course, you would not want your visitors to find you with an unusual key term.

How would you know if your pages are supplemental? 

Type site:www.yourdomain.com in Google search and keep checking the pages. At some point, you would see your pages branded as supplemental. All the pages after that are supplemental. If they are a few, it is not a big problem but if there are dozens of them, your site is in trouble.

Why some of the pages go supplemental? 

There are some identifiable reasons why pages get tagged as supplemental. Here is the list:

• Mirror pages

• Similar titles and description meta tags

• Long dynamic urls (too many parameters)

• Not enough indexable content

The most important reason can be a lack of backlinks. If there are no incoming backlinks to a page, it is likely to slip into supplemental index.

 

If the above things are in right place, you might not face the brunt of supplemental index from Google.

 

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