<insert city name> event - Google now listing events in top position

[MrSavage]

Not sure if this is fully rolled out or what, but on my desktop monitor, the top 30% to 40% of the search results page was Google event listings. Yes you can click any listing which takes you onto a search result page for that given event. I would imagine for those looking for quick listings, you website article or information may not be necessary or at least won't do much in terms of gaining Google organic traffic.

Not only does this cover the top of the search results page, but it has those slider type scroll bars so you can see events coming far into the future without having to move from the search page (I say search results page with a sense of internal laughter).

I think out of all the answer box results, etc, this events thing is about the most major in terms of pushing organics down. It's simply a vast amount of real estate taken up. Search engine I know Google has said that isn't what they are anymore, and clearly what I see today illustrates that point rather clearly.

Check for yourself. I was simply searching: <city name> events

[Robert Charlton]

Forgive slightly long and rambling post. At first, as I was trying the search, I thought you had to describe the kind of event, so I couldn't make it happen. The search is for the actual word "event" or "events" plus the <cityname>. It doesn't seem to work with any other location type, nor with any keyword more specific than "event(s)". Google describes the results in the serps as...

Placename / Events ...noticeably hierarchical.

The closest I'd seen to this previously was posted back in March by aakk9999, who also posted a screen-capture, so we've got that to compare...

Another SERPs Knowledge Layout - No Organic Above Fold
March, 2015
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4742084.htm [webmasterworld.com]

It's triggered by searches in the form of...

camping placename

All of these are arranged in a grid layout in columns of 3 or 4 entries, etc, as appropriate. Destinations had thumbnails for each placename listing. Events only have a thumbnail for the "city". This is the same as the image used in the Knowledge Graph listing for the city that shows up simultaneously in the usual spot on the right, though now below the rows of events. Sidescroll arrows for both types of searches then serve to shift the rows of the grid right or (eventually) left.

Some evolution from the screen capture. Back in March, Google showed them in the serps as Placename > Destinations, but now a more hierarchical "/" is used. I should note, btw, that for the Destinations results in the US, "placename" can be either "United States" or a Statename. If I change to the city level, I get some places results with a map, as if camping in cities is more likely to be commercial than camping in states, and Google seems to be separating some commercial entities from non-commercial.

When other searches go commercial at the city level (eg, "hotels"), right now I'm getting either the old image carousel, which I haven't noticed for a while, or a 3-pack and maps results (testing again?), depending on the size of the city... and with cityname hotels too there's no indication of the (Knowledge Graph) hierarchy that we're seeing both with Destinations and with Events.

There's something else I've noticed, though, which adds a startling aspect to this... up in the top left of the page, above the Placename in both Destinations or Events, the word "Web", which I've long remembered had that default spot in the organic SERPs, has become "All".

Among other things, this is probably suggesting that Google is going beyond the web for its information in these searches, as it has for a while, but is now stating that clearly.

See new thread I've just started on this... and in fact interrupted posting of this one to post it....

Google changes "Web" to "All" in verticals on SERPs
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4782540.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[piatkow]

They are actually suggesting new searches for what I assume they have estimated as the most popular events in the city.

[MrSavage]

For my city, I counted 32 listings total, that's 8 columns of 4 listings. New search suggestions? Heh, time and date. Next I'm sure there will be "buy tickets" links. There will be no need for a go between site in the near future. I mean who would complain about the serps not being serps? Us? I guess my only troubling aspect is that this isn't manually entered. The question of fair of how info is gathered is another question all together. I'm just quite interested in how the progression from search to solution/answer is going and how reliable organic traffic is fading from Google as a whole. Yes, just to clarify if you searched: Seattle events, this is what would result in the events cluster on top of the page. I will be interested to see when this progresses to providing more, like direct ticket purchases etc. Might be a couple months from that? Let's see.