You might have observed that Google shows only 7 organic search results instead of the usual 10 results on the first page. For example, if you try to find term ‘Adwords’ with Google, you will only 7 organic search listings.
As mentioned in the SEOmoze blog by Dr. Pete, Google only shows 7 results instead of 10. Here is the graph of the percentage of first page search results, which includes less than 10 organic listings since April 4, 2012:
Graph of Top 10 SERPs with less than 10 results
It had been ranging from 1-4% of the data set for a while associated with SERPs with less than 10 results. Just within a couple of days, 10 organic listings of the first page search result drastically raised from 1-4% to over 18%! Isn’t it amazing?
If you take a look at 7 result pages, you will find nearly the complete spike occurred here. Have a look at the graph of graph of just 7-result data:
As above graph indicates, 7 results SERPs were roughly conventional preceding 8/13, which is only 0.1% on any given day. On 8/13, this figure increased to 10.7% and then to 18.3% on the next day. It’s very near to 1/5th of SERPs.
A small case study
We all are habituated with 10-result page, and hence it really looks strange when we see the unnatural 7 results page. Here is a screenshot of sample – SERPs with 7 results of “pc tools”. Have a look, what’s going on here?
Here you will notice a few things.
- “PC Tools” is a brand
- The first result has extended site-links
Not every SERP affected seems to be branded. If you search for “krill” in Google, you will see the Wikipedia is the first link and Google shows only 7 results. Moreover, the study indicates that the affected keywords carry expanded site-links in the majority of cases. Here, the one thing that surprises all is that all keywords were not branded, however branded queries and site-links are naturally interconnected.
For those who are associated with SEO- this is not something related to Search Engine optimization, and one can’t change this with link-profile or on-page tweaks too. It’s nothing but Google’s algorithmic change, which we can’t change. Hence, it would be a smart move to check the rankings of your keywords instead of totally relying on any software or tool. Making necessary changes would be imperative if you are on #8 or #9, and keep your eyes on SERPs. It’s time to gear up now!
Source: http://www.seomoz.org/
