Google Running a Global Test On Their .com Domain
Euan Brock
Posted 20 May, 2016 by Euan Brock in PPC
Google Running a Global Test On Their .com Domain
Over the past few days we have noticed Google playing around the look of SERPs on their .com domain, which was picked up by our very own Dan Sharp yesterday.
After carrying out a series of tests it looks like regardless of the country of search, people using the .com domain are seeing both organic and paid results appearing in their own box. At this moment in time it hasn’t been rolled out to country specific domains such .co.uk, .fr, .com.au etc, although as with anything Google related…watch this space.
There has been no official announcement from Google with any reasoning or thought behind the change, although there is a striking resemblance to the view seen in mobile SERPs. Perhaps it is just Google’s way of cleaning up the presentation of SERPs on desktop, making it easier for users to view.
What do you think? Is this Google practising what they preach & going even more mobile-centric? Let me know in the comments!
i think they are going even more revenue-centric :)
Hi Simone, yeah I think you are right, anyway Google can increase their revenue they are likely to take that avenue. It will be interesting to see if it has had an impact and whether they will actually roll this out.
There’s been a lot of noise around this card-type design, not just for mobile, because of the new(ish) Rich Cards – Moz blog did an interesting writeup on it recently. I quite like it myself, my personal desktop browser got stuck on it a few days ago but I find it nice and tidy to scroll through. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes the desktop norm in the name of mobile-first, but I suspect we’ll see a lot more extensive testing – especially on ad CTRs! – before that is fully rolled out.
Hey Ruth, I think you are right they have and will continue to go through a lot of extensive testing, that’s probably why they keep popping in and out of peoples searches. I would be amazed if they didn’t roll it out fully, as you said it provides a much cleaner look and gives a greater emphasis on the paid results which is essentially what Google want to do…..guess we will have to watch this space