The last 3 months have heralded a bevy of new tests and features from Google’s search results, and it’s worth taking a review of the most frequent of these and examining what it potentially holds for optimization of the future.
The new results types include:
Growth of Rich Text Snippets
Perhaps the most obvious and well-covered, rich text snippets enable certain sites to provide Google with extra “structured” information about their pages and receive data callouts in several formats inside Google’s results.
BTW – Notice how Hulu’s rich snippets aren’t quite as “rich” as YouTube’s? I’m not entirely sure why that is, as Hulu does feature star review numbers just like YouTube.
Internal Anchor Links
Google’s been recognizing use of the hash tag (#) in URLs and has taken a new approach of showing these embedded anchor links right in the SERPs as separate callouts.
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This last Gmail result is among the more recent changes Google’s shown with the “jump to” feature embedded inside the snippet (rather than below it).
Page-Specific Sitelinks
Domains have, for a long time, been able to achieve “sitelink” status, whereby important subpages are listed below the main URL, taking up a significant portion of a SERPs’ real estate. Now, Google is offering a similar, though slightly less spacious, piece of real estate to sub-pages on individual internal pages.
Embedded Vertical Results
Several forms of this feature have received mainstream coverage, but the use of embedding vertical data and links, typically with the “+” link, has grown in recent months to encompass data of all kinds.
Multi-Page Article Results
One of the least reported (at least in my brief survey of blog posts) effects, this rich snippet format can have a dramatic effect on the vertical space devoted to a listing. It shows for certain types of forum threads & articles where multiple pages are (in Google’s eyes) relevant to the search query.
What Does this Portend for SEO?
- Smart, valuable internal anchors may be a good way to get more visibility in the SERPs
- Attaching vertical data or vertical connections to URLs can earn more visibility (but Google may also take those clicks away as they lead back to other Google properties such as Maps, Finance, etc.)
- Earning authority to individual internal pages may be a valuable tactic to receive greater eyeball activity in the results (even if your page’s don’t rank #1)
- Multiple authors and pages on blog/forum style content can attract greater SERPs real estate
I’d love to hear other new kinds of SERPs you’ve been seeing and the impact you perceive on the practices of SEO and content creation.
