A Video From Google Explaining What They Display on Search Engine Results Pages

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 | Lawyer Marketing

Many of my clients ask how Google decides how to display their results on the SERP pages.   Rather than just giving you my own explanation , I thought it might be helpful to hear for yourself via the following video.  Matt Cutts is a Google Engineer and currently the head of their Webspam team.  More important to us, he is generally regarded as the man who enforces the Google Webmaster Guidelines and helps educate the public on how to improve their visibility on the Google Search Engine Results pages.

In this particular video, Cutts discusses “Snippets,” which is the term used for the information Google displays on the Search Engine Results Pages about each site.

One of the most interesting parts of his example, I think, is his explanation of what are called SiteLinks.  In the video, it is the section at the bottom of the snippet that looks like an index of the Starbucks site used in the example (Store Locator, About Us, etc).    Many of my clients ask how they can get this added to their sites.

Important to know about SiteLinks is that it isn’t something you create or request.  It just happens, and it only happens if your site is laid out in a Google friendly manner and on sites with a good bit of quality content.  Most importantly, it only shows up for the top listing in any search.

For people who want to fully understand what Google is displaying and why, I recommend watching the video.

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