Google! Stop Stealing my SERPs!
I was doing a simple keyword analysis for a client of mine when I came across something I have never seen before in Google. I know they toy around with the supplemental results, I know there have been rumors of them selling organic placement, but this didn’t fall into either of those categories.
What I found was that instead of using a suggested keyword list for my searched term as normally done, they provided me with an ‘inset’ second list of SERPs distinguished with “See results for: equity apartments” as shown below.
When I scrolled over the link to discover the link’s path, it was clear that Google is carefully tracking the click through for the input suggested SERPs. At first I thought maybe Google was selling the placement for keywords relating to my original terms. But it seemed unlikely, as they were clearly marked as being keywords I was not searching for.
So I then viewed the SERPs for equity apartments, and found out that the 3 placed SERPs were ranked the top 3 in their correct order as viewed using “equity management” SERPs.
When I scrolled over these results, thinking that maybe Google got rid of the sponsored section look to make everything flow, I noticed the links without the Google tracking. So the input links were the top 3 SERPs for their designated keyword.
This still boggles me a bit. I was reading a Sphinn article by Kimber Cook how Craigslist was stealing her clients Google rankings, and now I feel that Google is stealing my Google rankings. In this case, it narrows down the 1st pages results to displaying only 7 results pertaining to the originally suggested keywords. The spots with the highest lead conversions (SERPs 3-6), are being replaced with other semi relevant suggestions.
I would love to know how readers of this article feel about this discovery. Anyone know what’s going on?
Melinda Roberts
obu Web Technologies, Phoenix Search Engine Optimization
Hi Melinda,
While this is a great article with screenshots included, Google has been practicing this ‘inset’ for what I’d guess to be a year now. It bugged me when it first started happening for the same reasons it bugs you. However think of it this way, all it means is that you get to aim for the top 7 and not the top 10.
I am willing to take a guess and say that Google is tracking these to see if anyone is actually reading the results or just getting click happy.
My $0.02
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