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Top Google Results Earn Additional Links
August 08, 2005
More and more Google searches are turning up results in which the top result offers additional site links beyond the main URL. Noticed again recently at SERoundtable, this isn't entirely new; Google has been playing with it off for about a month.
The new style of results don't show up for every search. So far, in searches I've done, they are most likely to show up for searches of large brands (provided the brand doesn't have an immediate redirect or a page made entirely of Flash elements) as well as larger, more competitive keywords. Here's an example shot, a search for "adidas":
The additional links are inside the red box above. I noted the Flash/redirect restriction because it appears the new links are pulled directly from the front page of the site, either from anchor text, link titles, or ALT tag text. Yet another vote for a clean, text-based home page and judicious use of anchor text.
Also note the horizontal layout of the links. During the first iteration of this trial, the links were stacked vertically; in his original post, Barry Schwartz referred to users specifically complaining that the vertical stack lowered too many other resulting sites below the fold.
And finally, More results from www.adidas.com is nothing more than a link to a simple site: command.
So the top spot on the Google SERP, under the right circumstances, now means more potential clicks than before. We'll be on the lookout for the potential effect this has on clickthrough.
All posts by Erik Dafforn
posted by Erik Dafforn at August 8, 2005 09:15 AM
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