New interface feature from Google - I'll dub it "Google Arrows."
I was shocked to see this new feature in my Google SERPs today. It doesn't require personalization to be turned on, and it appears (for me at least) across an incredible variety of search results. It appears to correspond somewhat with the multiple page listings that often follow highly trafficked or searched-for sites and provides AJAX-like functionality, dropping down the other listings and allowing a searcher to get more information about the website, although it's hard for me to identify at this point where the text is coming from (appears to be a bit fuzzy and fluctuating at this point).
A visual example:
If you follow the link for the search phrase (search engine marketing), you'll see a great number of the listings have this arrow (unless it's just my datacenter). The odd thing is, I ran more than a few searches this morning and didn't spot it until just now.
If this listing format sticks, I think search marketers are going to need to concentrate very hard on how it affects click-through-rates. Optimizing this new, longer "snippet" could become a massively important part of a search marketing campaign.
Is anyone else seeing this yet? What's your opinion about the source of the text and short/long term effects of the new "Google Arrow"?
Nice find, i cant see it on any UK IPs.
Google do seem to test little changes out on certain data centers.
Rand, on my results I don't get the arrows, but my third place SEW listing has the indented second listing below it. Do you recall seeing a second indented listing or was that not there? I'm wondering if that is the threshold for getting the expanded description.
Honestly, I can't see many searchers actually clicking on the arrow for more info (they'd just click into the site) but adding that arrow there is like a big "click here" sign. If this becomes a standard feature, getting that arrow will be more important than getting a top placement!
This is off-topic.
Do you know physical location of Google datacenters? I've searched the web for a list of locations, but so far haven't been successful.
Ex. 64.233.189.104 is in China
I don't know offhand, but I did create a handy tool that might help you pinpoint the geographic locations of the IPs.
Thanks for the tool Matt.
216.239.59.104 This Google datacenter is supposed to be in Ireland, but according to your tool it's in California. I guess it's pulling the registra info.
It pulls from a geoip database available from www.maxmind.com. From their website: We employ user-entered location data from sites that ask web visitors to provide their geographic location. We then run millions of these datasets through a series of algorithms that identify, extract, and extrapolate location points for IP addresses.
Maybe these datasets don't apply to well to google datacenters.
Old news... see this archived entry at seroundtable,they also have another similar test going on.
I personally stumbled across another new test layout yesterday. It was pretty similar to what they have in Google blogs; that was pretty nice and definitely nicer than the collapsing menus.
Good find, 2K - I was searching around to see if anyone had talked about it yet and couldn't dig it up. Good to know Barry's on top of it (two months before me at that) :)
The IP address I was getting it on was 72.14.207.99, but it appears to be gone now. If someone does see it on an IP they're hitting, please let us know.
Good thing you were quick on that screenshot! Too bad it wasn't tested wider, I would have liked a try at it. It actually seems quite appealing to me.
64.233.183.107 Doesnt have it 216.239.57.99 Doesn't have it Nor did my local datacenter....(STL)
I wonder what the basis is for a site to have an "arrow". I wonder if they have a relationship with Jupiter to test it out, or if a site must have a minimum amount of pages index, or if a site must produce X amount of content per day, or if content must be user generated, etc.
Odd, you also had a preview of the Yahoo beta before anyone else. Have the big three figured out your IP address and are doing extreme micro test markets on your computer alone? ;)
BTW - the results in my data center are significantly different for "search engine marketing". Guess those update rumors may be true.
I just did the same search in ATL and they did not show up. Interesting how the day I launch my first campaign the rules change.