Google search diversity update is set to challenge Amazon discovery dominance as it aims to limit the same sites from appearing in the top Google results, says new analysis by Searchmetrics.
The move will see popular domains no longer occupying more than two ranking positions in the first results page. This means that merchants’ websites will get a higher chance to rank for keywords that used to be dominated by sites such as Amazon.
The tweet on the 6th of June highlights Google’s attempt to increase competition in the search market by giving visibility to smaller and niche websites. This raises a question. How much popular websites dominated the Google search before the update took place?
Searchmetrics analysed top ten search results on Google.com for 10,000 words before and after the diversity update.
The research says that three URLs from one domain are now appearing for 3.5% of the analysed keywords. That’s down from 6.7% before the update. This halves the chance of shoppers to see the same website appearing three times in the ten ranking positions.
When it comes to the affected search intent, there is a definite leaning towards transactional searches amongst keywords that have been impacted by the diversity update. This means that a domain has lost one of its three top 10 rankings.
This also shows Google’s focus to offer consumers more choices of websites on the first search results page. For example, a search term ‘nut crackers’ in March saw Amazon.com ranking on Google’s top three organic results before the update.
The diversity update saw Amazon.com taking the top two organic results. However, Google are now showing an image box from Amazon above the third-party organic results. This means that Amazon.com was limited to two organic results but still occupied a considerable amount of search engine dominance.
Google say they display more than two search results from one domain if it’s relevant for particular search intent. That is, if a shopper is searching for branded goods such as ‘Amazon Echo’ they will most likely to see more than two results from Amazon.com listed in the top results.
The update will likely to have a knock-on-effect effect on the visibility of merchants’ Amazon paid listings. However, merchants may be able to mitigate pushed down to the bottom of search results by optimising their listings so that theirs is the most relevant product. Sellers can refer to the series of two articles on Amazon SEO: Understanding Amazon factors, Amazon SEO Top 5 visibility tips to outmanoeuvre the visibility competition.
Additionally, this increases the argument for selling on multiple marketplaces and your own website to give multiple chances of your products being displayed on Google.
One Response
have to say
recent google searches seem more and more like ebay searches
the results not really reflecting what your looking for ,manipulated and gamed by the big players