Wild West In the SERPs

[CCarter]

Within SERPWoo we see a lot of crazy stuff in the SERPs, yet we barely report. I'm creating this thread to showcase some of the stuff going on within the SERPs, good, bad, ugly, and more.

First up, organized Steps:

Here is the kicker, none of the above sentences are within the content...

It's in the schema data:

Here is the schema you'll need: HowToDirection

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Next up Emojis:

They are ALL OVER the SERPs. There are so many that we had to do a deep database upgrade across all servers to accommodate them because data was looking ridiculous.

The thing is, where they exist is mostly international results. English results (USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and the likes) are greatly restricted. But all other places where English is not the main language it's the wild west.

I'll be back with more on this emoji stuff, because even though they are greatly restricted in the English native countries, a good chunk still get through.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Tabs:
Been seeing these tabs in the SERPs as well as featured image thumbnails:

You can click on these headers and see different descriptions below them. They're showing up for 5+ of the results out of 10 for me. I must be in the split test.

 

[CCarter]

Indentions:
This one is a bit more rare, but it started happening within the last 2-3 months in the SERPs.

They'll keep popping up when the next closest results are strongly related and from the same site. So essentially having 2 pages talking about a similar subject/topic COULD give you more SERP real estate.

That sort of flies in the face of gurus telling you to delete and combine pages.

"See when I'm out here in the field where the work is real..."​

I clearly plan on pissing a lot of gurus off with this thread. We're showing you what's working RIGHT NOW in the SERPs. Not theory.

Foreign Language Indentions:

There are some special indentions where if you Google a brand or something and the best result is a website in a foreign language, they'll link to the foreign language page and then the indention will be a version that's translated.

The foreign version is caused by the hreflang code: <link rel="alternate" href="https://www.apple.com/ae/" hreflang="en-AE" />

We're seeing Google use more and more rich data from websites and showcasing those results within the SERPs.

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Thumbnails:

Thumbnails have been appearing in the SERPs for almost 2-3 years now. If you see thumbnails in your SERPs it's a good chance you can take advantage of it and increase your CTR, because humans are visual:

To achieve this you need to implement the "og: image" property: Open Graph protocol

Looks like Yoast plugin implements this so various other WordPress plugins should as well.

 

[Sutra]

What causes a video thumbnail to show in a serps search result?

 

[CCarter]

What causes a video thumbnail to show in a serps search result?

That's inside the JSON-LD Video Structured Data as "thumbnailUrl": JSON-LD: Video Structured Data

There also has to be a video within the content.

 

[built]

One thing I’ve noticed in the serps is that the number of results seems to be dynamic. I can get two different number of results using the same allintitle:keyword

Tried this with a friend of mine using the same search and we both got different results for most things.

Not sure if this is a new thing or not

 

[hiruma]

I also noticed that some words on my snippets have tooltips in them. Idk if this is new to you guys but it's the first time I saw it.

 

[Siberian]

I’m seeing a lot of indented SERPs in my niche. All geographical for me - things like:

Best widgets in California

Best widgets in Los Angeles​

​

Also lots of snippets from tables being included in my individual SERP results.

The table snippets have got a crazy high CTR for me, the indents oddly have less of an impact (but still some).

 

[secretagentdad]

One thing I’ve noticed in the serps is that the number of results seems to be dynamic. I can get two different number of results using the same allintitle:keyword

Tried this with a friend of mine using the same search and we both got different results for most things.

Not sure if this is a new thing or not

Gas lighting people into their own little micro realities as a business model......

What the fuck happened to don't be evil.

 

[CCarter]

Table-ed Data:

Looks like reports of table-ed data is correct. However looking at the source code there is no structured data or anything special going on, so Google is making this decision on their own:

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BIG HEAD Mode!

Maps and images of rich data are getting bigger. I think this one really has to do with the query,

A majority of scenarios still have the "website" and "directions" options:

Notice that's now a 4-pack snack pack map pack. Edit: a closer look and it appears that first result is an AD. Damn they got me.

Note: these are all desktop results.

If you want to see the real wild west, mobile will give you guys a heart attack.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Things to Know:

Apparently this has been on mobile for a while and has made it's way to desktop:

Google is now taking sections of your content and displaying it underneath your listing, basically making it so the user doesn't need to click through to your site if they find the info they want there.

Maybe they find enough to act as a teaser and it increases the CTR for #1. Or maybe they don't see what they want in those snippets, even though you have it, and it incentivizes them to click #2 instead. Of course Google will be split testing it all, but come on. How about don't steal our content?

 

[Boy]

Things to Know:

Apparently this has been on mobile for a while and has made it's way to desktop:

Google is now taking sections of your content and displaying it underneath your listing, basically making it so the user doesn't need to click through to your site if they find the info they want there.

Maybe they find enough to act as a teaser and it increases the CTR for #1. Or maybe they don't see what they want in those snippets, even though you have it, and it incentivizes them to click #2 instead. Of course Google will be split testing it all, but come on. How about don't steal our content?

It sounds more and more like Amazon/FBA allowing people to sell on their platform for years only to collect all the data and make their Amazon basics lineup.

We've been feeding content (data) to Google for years in exchange for traffic, and they've just been training up to not need to send anyone anywhere.

 

[bernard]

Sucks you guys don't have a serious anti-trust agency in the US.

A lot of these things don't fly in Europe.

 

[CCarter]

People Also Ask Suggestions Within Search Bar

This one is a doozy if you think about it. "People Also Ask" AND "People Also Search For" Suggestions within the Search Bar:

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The implication is now people may not even see the current search results because Google has determined "that's not the question you want to ask..."

So if user gets this result and then clicks does the original search still count as an impression?

Forget "Rich Data", so even if you get the #1 results for a keyword that's got serious volume, the searcher might not even see you cause they were suggested other results.