"Store" Links Also Position 1-5 Organic - how can we compete?

[MLHmptn]

Just noticed this and surprisingly I haven't noticed it be mentioned on here yet but with this last algo change they made a huge change in the SERP's! Notice now that the the sites listed as SITES in the "Brand, Store, Type" attributes in search are now 1-5 in results based on the STORE. How do we become a "Store"? I've noticed what was 1-5 before is now displaced 6-10 and if your considered a "Store" you need not SEO for that term. Why?! Are the Amazon's, Walmarts, Targets, Ace Hardware's seriously more relevant than stores that are 100% unique and have literally 1000's of this unique item vs 5-10?! Do we seriously need to run a B&M store in every major city in the USA just to be placed within the position 1-5 SERP's Google?! Wow! Bye, bye mom and pop, hello big business!

How this has not been noticed as of yet I'm amazed.....Absolutely "zero" discussion of this. Store, Store, Store....If your not a "Store" see ya!


SEO?! You mean SEO for 6-10?! :>~

[tedster]

You just scared me - so I did a few searches that trigger Brand and Store at the top - and the five stores do not monopolize #1 to #5 on those searches, although several of them are in the top five.

So I'd say there is definitely room for you to compete, even if you are not considered to be a "store".

[MLHmptn]

Well I'm certainly competing but after further analysis I'm certainly SHOCKED to say the least! Obviously this "STORE" thing is a major signal now. I'm now noticing not exactly 1-5 are these stores but I have yet to find one result where not 1 of the stores listed is not on the first page. Can you?

[tedster]

Everything I checked so far shows at least two of the "stores" also holding a top five organic position. But given the names involved, I'm not surprised. What actually does surprise me is some of the "stores" that don't make it onto the first page.

The playing field has definitely been tilting away from level for a long time now. But I do think that's what the average Google user wants.

[edited by: tedster at 7:26 am (utc) on Feb 13, 2011]

[MLHmptn]

Real simple way of killing link value anchors aye?! How did we not sniff this out weeks ago when it's been right in front of our faces now for a few weeks.

Now the question is how to become a "store"? These "stores" are clearly hand selected as well I've noticed because some of these stores I've seen typo's in the "store" listing.

I've now finally seen a keyword search where a listed "store" is not in 1-10 and I've done over 100 different searches now. Obviously this is a major signal for Goog now.

[scottsonline]

Is there a way of giving examples? I'm not sure what you all mean? Maybe by putting an xyz in the middle of the term so as not to trigger this page ranking? Non site specific examples...?

[tedster]

Sure - this type of result is generated by the generic words for very common consumer items - like [jeans], [computer] or [sofa]

There's an interesting result for [mobile phone]. Only three of the "stores" appear on the first page, and they are results 6-8

[indyank]

I saw comments from two of you (netmeg and Tedster) that "user intent" is what google cares about? What is "user intent" and how does google arrive at it, if we take the above examples?

[tedster]

Google arrives at user intent by mining the monster pile of user data they have on various search terms over the years - seeing what people click on for types of queries. They've learned that for some very general queries, users are quite often looking for either specific brand options or physical store options - and so they created this type of search result page that gets triggered by those terms.

[indyank]

They've learned that for some very general queries, users are quite often looking for either specific brand options or physical store options

Wow...so by putting them on top they are making them almost invincible, as people will continue to click through them...

How will newer brands come to the top? Does this mean they have to get popular offline before people start searching them online by their brand name? Is this google's expectation?

[tedster]

This is only for some very generic consumer-oriented searches. After testing a lot of terms, it's clear to me that being listed under "Stores" doesn't mean getting a top organic ranking too. There's still room to compete.

Also note that clicking on a "Store" listing only takes you to another Google search result page - just like any "related search" link would. It seems like the Google algo picked up so many related searches for these very generic terms that they decided to create this version of related search suggestions and show five each of "Brands - Stores - Types".