Google has ceased the practice of displaying Indented Search Results within its search listings.
In the past, Google used to present an indented search outcome beneath the main result if it originated from the same domain. However, in recent weeks, Google has discontinued this indentation feature.
Any New Changes?
What brought about this change? According to Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, he mentioned, “We discontinued the practice of using ‘indented results’ a few weeks back.”
Google decided to cease indented results because, as Sullivan explained, “particularly with the continuous scroll feature, it no longer provided the same level of usefulness as it once did.”
How Indented Search Results Appeared Earlier:
Here’s a snapshot of the previous indented results from a few months back.
How it Appears Now
Now they are presented in a list format, without indentation, and without any particular sequence.
On Twitter, Google’s Search Liaison mentioned the following:
In quotations: “We stopped doing “indented results” a few weeks ago, and it’s unrelated to the core update. Especially with continuous scroll, it wasn’t as helpful as in the past….”
Concerns With the New Indented Search Result Changes
Earlier there have been instances within Google Search where more than two listings are being presented for non-branded results. This departs from Google’s established norm of showcasing a maximum of two listings, a practice that has endured for quite some time.
Additionally, listings now are distributed in an unstructured fashion, taking up different positions.
This appears to be something other than an intentional change, but rather a recurrence of an issue that people have encountered in the past, which Google had addressed.
Indentations have been eliminated, and there is an increase in the number of listings from a single site.
What Remains the Same?
What remains the same is that Google’s “diversity system continues to function, aiming to typically display only two results from the same website among the top results.”
Google has not altered the frequency with which Google Search may present results from the same domain for a single query on the same search results page. The only modification is that Google will no longer indent the results.
Possible Implications for Website Owners
With the removal of indented results for high-traffic queries without branded intent, many website owners may find that they are now ranking with only a single page rather than multiple pages.
On the flip side, there seems to be a potential issue, which I suspect might be a bug, related to the de-grouping and the impact on multiple URLs.
For websites that cover the same topics from various perspectives, there is now a possibility that the second URL could appear in a different, lower position on the page.
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