Goodbye 7 Pack, Hello 3 Pack

[goodroi]

Mike Blumenthal noticed that Google has changed their 7 pack to a 3 pack. [blumenthals.com...]

It is a bit early to say if this is a permanent change or a just a big test. Regardless this still isn't the best news for organic web rankings because the 3 pack is still big enough to push the organic web rankings below the fold for many screens. If you are into local SEO, then the competition just heated up because ranking #4 or lower in local isn't so great anymore.

[mrengine]

Just like equality in justice is linked to financial means so is appearing in Google's search results. I would not expect any less from a company that exists to please shareholders. The real question moving forward is how will Google use that real estate. More paid ads is my guess. It won't be much longer until the entire first page of the search results are paid ads, unless of course there are not enough advertisers to fulfill the query. Maybe that's why Google is pushing their latest Adwords vouchers - received two of them in the mail at separate businesses yesterday. Quite cunning!

I don't think this is a big test. The change is being reported throughout the world.

[rish3]

This part of the referenced article was also interesting to me:

"not only do non verified pages not link the G+ page but verified listings with active pages show no link."

This isn't the only area where they have started pulling back on G+.

[EditorialGuy]

Seven is an arbitrary number. (So is three, for that matter.)

A better solution might be to have a three-pack on mobile SERPs and a seven-pack on desktop/laptop/tablet SERPs, but one could argue that a "pack" (whether seven or three) is a distraction from the other search results. The bigger the pack, the bigger the distraction.