Brand Names now called out in Google Search Results

[tedster]

Brand refinements in search results
Sometimes when searching for product information on Google, you may not know some of the brand names relevant to your particular search. For example, if you're taking on a new river-rafting hobby, it's quite likely you don't have a clue about kayak manufacturers just yet.

...this week we launched a search refinement that calls out brand names related to your query in a single line above the rest of the results. Determined algorithmically, these highlighted brand names may help you find what you're looking for faster...

Official Google Blog [googleblog.blogspot.com]

[randle]

I guess the Vince update wasn't enough for them.

"Brands are the solution, not the problem," Mr. Schmidt said. "Brands are how you sort out the cesspool."

[aristotle]

I just saw this live when I did a Google search for "radios".
The results page had two paid ads at the top, then a string of five brand names, then the organic results which started with a Wikipedia page. When I clicked a couple of the brand names, I would get a page of shopping results for that brand.

[kidder]

Yet another way to make the serps uglier, Google is certainly on a mission.

[MLHmptn]

Yet another way to make the serps uglier, Google is certainly on a mission.

I don't know about uglier...to me it seems smarter as searchers don't always know brands and for you and me better ways to optimize our sites for branded searches (which I have already been doing). This and their new 3-column layout is a nice change as it's definitely making casual searchers aware of Google's other tools that only a select few even realize are there. This branding was something I first noticed on Bing but only implemented on cashback merchant searches and to see it implemented on natural serp's is just plain smart.

[kidder]

They are simply creating more clicks from each page, more clicks = more advertiser impressions... All the same I don't mind the 3 column layout.

[Eurydice]

Kidder wrote: They are simply creating more clicks from each page, more clicks = more advertiser impressions...

But Google doesn't make money on impressions. They make money on ad clicks. By offering the brand at the top, visitors click straight to the brand and then to the brand's URL. No joy in Mudville for the GAW team.

I searched for "cars". Only five car makers show up. But there are many more, and some are larger than the ones that show up.

Any ideas why these five were selected and the others not?

[tedster]

All Google is offering us is the cryptic phrase "determined algorithmically". But I think we can assume a big chunk of the algorithm must be search frequency.

Another chunk is likely to be an extension of work done for last year's "Vince" update [webmasterworld.com].

[kidder]

I would offer that more impressions means more chances to steer a user into a paid result. At least that is the way I see it when a user comes to one of my sites. Google just became a little more sticky.