According to the unofficial Google tip site, Google Operating System, the search results populating in the Google search engine seem to be swapping out URL’s for actual site names.
I searched and queried, but couldn’t seem to populate any search engine results in Google to show off what the difference is between the previous search results and the ones being tested on. The following screenshots were used by Google Operating System to illustrate the change.
While the first result has a typical URL under the result description, the following two have truncated tremendously to the simple green link with the site name for copy versus all that hyphenation. I searched for the same query used to populate this screenshot and this is what I got:
Granted, my results did not show up in the same order, but you can see that all my results were shown with full URL’s. No short site names, yet!
I’m curious to see where this potential change could take online marketing, especially when it comes to branding. Will those companies with heavily branded names find more success against smaller, lesser-known brands? What if the smaller brand has a better deal? Does the better-branded company still win? Will smaller companies start to get looked over as users begin focusing on those results with shorter, easier to digest page links? Share your thoughts and ideas below in the comments section!
For further information about this topic, check out the following links:
- Google Tests Using Site Name Rather Than URL in Search Results-Search Engine Land
- How Building Your Brand Name and Increasing Conversions Go Hand in Hand-SEO Boy (if you want some tips on branding, just in case!)
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more news updates from SEO Boy!
Kayla is an Account Executive at Hanapin Marketing, a search engine marketing firm focused on generating results through PPC and SEO.
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