Google’s Tweaking Search to Increase Site Diversity in Results
Ever google something and the results are all from the same site? Google’s aiming to fix that with a Search update that will give users more site diversity.
In a tweet, Google SearchLiaison explained the update means you won’t see more than two top results from the same website. Of course, that still depends on the particular search. If Google determines it highly relevant to your search term, you could get more than two results—for example, if you were searching for a particular article on a topic from a specific website (hint hint), or trying to buy a product from one retailer.
If you’re wondering how that impacts subdomains, Google says they’re generally be treated as coming from the same site. However, it clarified that for site diversity purposes, they’ll be “treated as separate sites...when deemed relevant to do so.”
Overall, this is a good thing. Instead of the same few sites hogging top spots, readers would have a greater variety of sources, and smaller websites would be less likely to be buried on the second or third pages of results. Highly ranked sites also need not worry about convening a war room to rethink their SEO strategies. In a tweet, Google’s Danny Sullivan clarified that sites that ranked highly should continue to do so—they just won’t show as many results.
The update is live now, though it’s separate from the June 2019 Core Update that released earlier this week. At the moment, some Twitter users are reporting they’re still seeing more than two top results from the same domain for some searches. Even so, it’s also worth remembering that updates like this take a bit of time before working out the kinks.
[9to5 Google, Engadget]
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