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It appears Google made a slight change in how they display the "cache" and "similar pages" link within the search results listings.
Yesterday, the link appeared on the same line as the URL, as shown here:
Today, the link appears on the line under the URL, as shown here:
Was this change intentional? It seems like everyone is seeing this on the main Google.com results.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Update: This is no longer happening, I assume some Googler accidently put a break in there and it got pushed to the main results. It is now back to normal.
Comments:
Dictina
01/10/2008 12:30 pm
I can confirm that it's also on local versions of Google like Google Spain. Now, they look more like the adwords on the right
MJ
01/10/2008 02:09 pm
They made more than a slight change. Has anyone else noticed sites that used to be "authoritative" with multiple links underneath their name now have only 1 link underneath them which says "More results from xyz.com"?
Barry Schwartz
01/10/2008 02:19 pm
MJ, I believe the "more results from ..." link is fairly old.
JLH
01/10/2008 02:40 pm
Interesting. I always wonder how much A/B testing and research goes into a decision like this. Maybe that would make a good story for someone with inside access to look into.
Dave
01/10/2008 02:48 pm
Same here in Germany. Only a small "break" and everything look's different. However, I think the hyphen after the filesize is not neccessary anymore.
Natasha Robinson
01/10/2008 04:18 pm
More Site Links + Moving This Down a Line= PPC Genius. I wonder how many Natural results you now see above the fold in a SERP, 1 maybe 2?
gabs
01/10/2008 04:18 pm
DON'T LIKE IT.. :( I'm not happy about this change.. Please google if you are going to keep it can we have a option to put it back the old way.. The page length is massive and now you need to be #1 to be above the fold!
Rakesh Bhambani
01/10/2008 05:50 pm
If I climb out of my skin for a moment and stop thinking whether it's good or bad for me as a search marketer, I awed by the brilliant move. Google's conversion ratio (Clicks on Adwords vs. natural search) would (should) take a huge jump. How I wish we had access to the analytics on this! I respect smart moves, whoever makes them, even if it were a competitor. This is the new Google landscape and we need to understand/ accept and leverage our understanding to use it to our best advantage. The only people who might have a problem with this situation is people who are 'married' to SEO and do not know the distinction between SEO and SEM.
Rakesh Bhambani
01/10/2008 05:59 pm
Good catch about that redundant hyphen Dave. I think that'll disappear pretty soon as well as the filesize too, I've never ever looked at that myself while using Google. I think the title tag and the description displays also may be shortened a tad to reduce the visual difference between paid and organic results as Dictina mentions above.
Rocky
01/11/2008 03:48 am
It doesn't change. Tested in Singapore.
Dictina
01/11/2008 12:43 pm
@Rakesh: I hope that the file size doesn't disappear I do look at it. Perhaps sometime we have a personalization of the info displayed.
Dictina
01/11/2008 12:55 pm
BTW, today I can't see it anymore. I must be a test, like JLH mention.
oggin
01/11/2008 02:16 pm
It doesn't change. Tested in Bulgaria and Russia