What is the new Google SERP highlighting?
-
My question is with the new Google SERP. I posted a pic of it at http://www.hortonwebdesign.com/images/new-google-page.gif.
If you mouse over the arrows to the right of a result on the SERP, it pops up a preview of the page. On some results it also highlights a section of the page with a red box. What does this represent? Does it represent a key area that they are looking at in determining the positioning?
I have some clients that are asking me and it doesn't make a lot of sense. In my example above I searched for "seo expert in georgia" and on my result (I'm #2), it shows a preview, but the part it has chosen to highlight with a red box is just, um, ...useless. It's highlighting a Recent Post sidebar on the right halfway down the page. Surely this can't be what they're looking at as what they view as "useful" to that search. This simply can't be what they're using to determine positioning. Or is it?
Just please explain what I'm seeing here.
-
Hmm. Let me research, but that seems like a legitimate reasoning. The only crux of that answer is that why would a typical searcher (someone like my parents) give a poo about what Google has selected as relevant? Especially when in some cases it's as innocuous as ALT text behind an image? If it wanted to utilize that feature to show the searcher where on the page was the most relevant to what they searched for, so that maybe they would know where to look when they arrived on the page, it's doing a very poor job. I think we're viewing a feature that doesn't have the quirks worked out yet because there doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason.
-
From what I can tell they are grabbing the smallest chunk of the page that contains the highest proportional use of the keyword. In some cases they can't get it all in one spot so the pull two separate highlights (check out hostgators preview on a "dedicated servers" search).
So a lot of the examples I see are a tagline or header that has the term. When it is a less naturally used phrase like "SEO expert in Georgia" then it will probably pull results like you are seeing. If you put a sentence closer to the top of the page that said something like "Your #1 SEO Expert in Georgia" with a sentence below it like "SEO experts in Georgia can be hard to find" I bet it would pull that out instead.
-
That's what I had originally thought. But that's not all there is to this. Even in your example for Hivelocity.net, it's showing the searcher (assumed) what it found on the page that was relevant to what they searched for. But by that logic, is it then saying that the text behind the image is more relevant to "dedicated servers" than anything else it could find in its database? This is where that assumption kind of falls apart. Especially since the area they're highlighting wouldn't even be visible to a typical user that never has even clicked to see source code before. The selections seem haphazard.
It's almost as if they're giving us insight into the algorithm and what it sees, but the value of what they're showing is bottom of the barrel. Even when "Dedicated servers" is in their title tag, header tags, etc., but it chose text behind an image? There's more to this...
-
The highlight is showing you where they found content on the page that matched your search query. This is handy for figuring out if the previewed site is actually talking about that you are looking for without going to the page.
This can lead to some interesting results because it highlights areas on the site where it finds the text even if it is behind an image because the designers are using image replacement, or perhaps the text shows up in a rotating banner, but doesn't come up in the screenshot.
For example do a search on "Dedicated Servers" and look at the preview for Hivelocity.net. You will see Google highlighted the middle of an image, but this is where they find the text in the site.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Creating a new website, but I'd like to control it under a different domain.
I'd like to control it under the domain of another website with a higher DA. Can I create the new website (website A) and do an immediate re-direct to another website (website B)? Or would I be better at putting it as a subdomain? Such as www.websitea.websiteb.com? Cheers all, Rhys
Web Design | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
Without Keyword Info From Google - How do we re-do a site not knowing what to keep?
Bit of a riddle I am trying to figure out here... I have a client that receives some visits via organic searches (around 700). Most of which are to the homepage. The client isn't actively targeting any keywords yet (on purpose) and the homepage doesn't have much on it. I've been hired to do keyword research and re-develop the site but this is the first site I've done since google really put the hurt on keyword information. My worry is that without knowing what keywords people are using currently to search and find the site, I will be potentially deleting information that is bringing in traffic. Looking at the traffic and other keywords I can view I think the keywords are branded which makes it a bit easier but again, it is a bit worrisome, not so much for this client but for future work. Anyone have any ideas other than looking at webmaster tools and landing pages?
Web Design | | JoshBowers20120 -
Did i got hit from some google updates.
Hello everybody, i got a problem and i hope someone can clear it up for me. my root domain authority is 42 and home page is 52 (jumped there only yesterday) ,while my google page rank is still PR2 (same for 3 month already). 1 month ago i changed my home page design (not the text) and since then my home page just disappeared from the search engines. can somebody look on my website www.kspiercing.com , and tell me if i got hit by some panda ,koala,penguin or some other sweet Google animal . thank you very much.
Web Design | | kspiercing0 -
New Website Redesign: Any Design Comments or SEO Suggestions?
Hi! We recently launched our new website after MONTHS of work. Now that it is live, we are looking to fine tune the design and SEO efforts. This is our new website. And for reference, this is our old website. Any and all comments on design and SEO would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help! Mike
Web Design | | Mike.Goracke0 -
Implementing a new Nav Bar: Best practice, SEO benefit, your suggestions?
Hi Mozland, We are going to have a new Nav Bar for our site built from the horror that we currently have to up with. We want to make it a simple affair, similar to The Guardian two-tier Nav Bar - main menu which will drop down to the 2nd tier according to what you clicked on in tier one. Regular stuff, I think. Any suggestions, from your experience, about how best to implement this, what to include, what not to do, what can be included and done to make it as best it can be to get people to peruse our site as easily as possible? Thanks
Web Design | | Martin_S0 -
Can google crawl text in jquery sliders?
We are redesigning our website and want to present a fair amount of text within jquery sliders. Will google crawl this text or is it treated the same way as actual script? Perhaps there is a way to just have the text as plain html but use jquery to display it?
Web Design | | Netboost0 -
Is the server or host a metric for SERPs? Amazon Webstore a plus?
Hello Friends, I have been pondering a question that I bet Ben or some of the other clever folks this list will know. Do the search engines give a preference to sites hosted and served from larger companies like Amazon? With an Amazom Webstore, it would have our domain name but Amazon would supply much of the structure and back end like card processing and check out. Could having amazon as the server be an indicator of better results in the SERPS similar to having a stronger Domain Authority? Are there any draw backs for optimization when using an Amazon Webstore? Thank you. QP
Web Design | | QuietProgress0 -
The primary search keywords for our news release network have dropped like a rock in Google... we are not sure why.
Hi, On April 11th, a month after the farmer update was released for U.S. users of Google, the primary keywords for ALL our sites significantly dropped in Google. I have some ideas why, but I wanted to get some second opinions also. First off, I did some research if Google did anything on the 11th of April... they did. They implemented the farmer update internationally, but that does not explain why our ranks did not drop in March for U.S. Google users... unless they rolled out their update based on what site the domain is registered in... in our case, Canada. The primary news release site is www.hotelnewsresource.com, but we have many running on the same server. EG. www.restaurantnewsresource.com, www.travelindustrywire.com and many more. We were number 1 or had top ranks for terms like ¨Hotel News¨, ¨Hotel Industry¨, ¨Hotel Financing¨, ¨Hotel Jobs¨, ¨Hotels for Sale¨, etc... and now, for most of these we have dropped in a big way. It seems that Google has issued a penalty for every internal page we link to. Couple obvious issues with the current template we use... too many links, and we intend to change that asap, but it has never been a problem before. The domain hotelnewsresource.com is 10 years old and still holds a page rank of 6. Secondly, the way our news system works, it´s possible to access an article from any domain in the network. E.G. I can read an article that was assigned to www.hotelnewsresource.com on www.restaurantnewsresource.com... we don´t post links to the irrelevant domain, but it does sometimes get indexed. So, we are going to implement the Google source meta tag option. The bottom line is that I think we put too much faith in the maturity of the domain... thinking that may protect us... not the case and it´s now a big mess. Any insight you can offer would be greatly appreciated. Do you think it was farmer or possibly something else? Thanks, Jarrett
Web Design | | jarrett.mackay0