serps are now paid for

the end of the free portal

[soapystar]

google no longer is the clean portal of old simply serving free serps. when i search now the first free result is seven lares deep, right after 2 sponsered results, 2 catageory listings and 3 news items. Where will it end? With the free serps starting on page 2?

[WebGuerrilla]

Point #1. Google is not a portal.

Point #2. News listings are not paid listings.

Point #3. Directory category listings are not paid listings.

It is certainly your right to voice your opinion that Google's decision to display these results above the crawled results is a bad thing. But claiming that those results are paid for is a completely different matter.

I'd love to hear how you came to such a conclusion.

[soapystar]

hum, well i could have phrased it better. By portal i meant the changing face on the homepage taking on a more portal feel compared to the original simplicity. By free result i mean the free serps, i dont mean the news and directory are paid for. My point is that for many results, after making a search, the first real result is 7 layers deep. This is continuing to grow, i wonder at what point google will decide the actual search engine result is deep enough.

[DaveN]

soapystar, I just don't see that, are you sure your not looking at MSN ;) , we promote sites REAL sites they are always on the first page of the targeted traffic (sniper not shotgun) ,

If google had breaking news stories and sign up for free email here all over the place like Y! and MSN then maybe I would lose a nights sleeps,

but google is still free and the serps are just fine of me.

DaveN

[2_much]

I think Google has enough sense to avoid that, that's why they're the # 1 SE now, people love the "experience".

[dmorison]

I see exactly what soapystar is getting at.

I've just been able to craft a query (took a few attempts mind you) that only had two natural SERP results visible "above the fold" (to use newspaper speak).

[chiyo]

If you are in anything even close to a competitive keyword area, all SERP positions are paid for, either by cash, or paying for SEO or using your own staff/unpaid labour to do it.

[Yidaki]

>serps are now paid for (?)
>the end of the free portal (?)

If you'd have put it as a question it wouldn't look like one of these yellowpress headlines which turn a speculation into a fact to give a wrong impression.

Man ...

[soapystar]

If you'd have put it as a question it wouldn't look like one of these yellowpress headlines which turn a speculation into a fact to give a wrong impression.

Point taken. I'm simply saying that from the actual serps appearing at the top of the page we are now down to the 8th layer for some searches. Im asking if this will continue and how far down can serps be allowed to fall before the whole nature of what google was changes.

[HughMungus]

All I care about is what's above the fold, too. Maybe google should allow people to customize their google searches to NOT include Google News results (in addition to my long-held wish that keywords appearing in news articles would not appear in search results). Maybe as Google evolves...at least they seem to listen.

[vitaplease]

Yes its time to remove the top two sponsered results and drop them to the right as they used to be. Clean. Left is search Right is sponsored.

Then replace the top Dmoz category listings with one line of "search query expansion" (related links) [webmasterworld.com]
(the Dmoz cats are listed under the individual results anyway)

[GranPops]

Having tried to re-produce the result Soapy mentioned among our extremely precise search terms, for some, among millions of results, I cannot find it. Google is by far the most accurate for the 280 keyword phrases that we currently work on. Sure it is going through changes, but with the brilliant young minds involved in the operation, it can only get even better.
GranPops

[roitracker]

I just don't see that, are you sure your not looking at MSN

lol :)

its time to remove the top two sponsered results and drop them to the right

I agree. I don't mind 2 or 3 news-related links at the top, but the screen real-estate is definitely beginning to get a bit cluttered on some of the SERPs.

Keeping the sponsored listings to the right would definitely be an improvement, particularly since I now have "banner blindness" when it comes to the premium sponsors ("normal" AdWords are fine).

[HitProf]

GranPops, did you switch to 'Google.com in English'? Try that and do a search for some popular single keyword that happens to be in the news lately.

The US (?) results are a lot more cluttered compared to the international results. And my guess is we Europeans even miss some of the new 'features' because of geo targeting by IP address.

[BigDave]

You all are making it sound like the directory entries and news references are taking up as much space as a normal result each. On the ones that I tried the DMOZ they never took up more space than a single entry.

And with the 2 sponsored links taking up about as much vertical space as one entry, it removes a grand total of 2 results from above the fold.

And it sure doesn't hurt to remember that sometimes people might actually find that information useful.

Has anyone looked into whether or not Google has started removing some of the news items from the regular results when they put them up there in the smaller font? If that is the case, so you still consider it all that bad?

[bhartzer]

Google has made it very clear that their Paid listings (i.e., Adwords, Adsense) have nothing to do with their free rankings.

The "serps are now paid for" theory may be alive and well at other search engines and portals like MSN and Yahoo, but it definitely is not true when it comes to Google.

[Dave_Hawley]

I have never seen more than 2 paid listings (always in a different color) at the top of any search result.

Dave

[soapystar]

ok, i must have been very tired when i wrote that title. What i was trying to say was that we are seeing the start of the diminishing in importance of the free serps. 8 Layers deep now for some searches. I pose the question, HOW FAR WILL GOOGLE LET THE FREE SERPS DROP?

[Dave_Hawley]

8 Layers deep now for some searches

Using what search term? As mentioned, 2 AdWords at the top is the most I've ever seen.

Dave

[sidyadav]

I don't know what you're meaning by "8 layers" As for me, 99.9999999999% of the queries I send, I click on the top result and it is always Accurate, if I need more information, then I go on to 2nd, 3rd 4th... maybe 2nd page... but still I don't go to the "8th Layer" of the query because I already receive what I want in the 1st one!

Sid

[Dayo_UK]

I think eight level is stretching it a bit, but I suppose the following can be returned on some searches which does put the crawled results down a bit more - I would have thought the maximum would be three or four from the below list.

Sponser1
Sponser2
Dmoz Category1
Dmoz Category2 (Does it somtimes show a second cat?)
News1
News2
Related Searches (Sometimes)
Spelling Suggestion
Maps
Stock Quotes
Calculator Result (?)

Anymore Serp enhancements that Google have above the crawled results?

Anyway, they always seem relevant to the search and many users would see the added benefit.