Usually when you run a search on certain keywords followed by a domain name (I don’t mean a site:www type search), Google spits back a page or two and then a “Show more results from www.whatever” link. A search I ran tonight shows something completely different.

Here’s the result:

.. so an additional 3 listings - and with only a short snippet, around 76 characters vs. the 175 or so that it usually produces.

It’s a nice feature (saves having to move your mouse an inch or two); but given the length of the snippet, it highlights the importance of using a good title tag and a good description meta-tag - particularly the latter as otherwise just a few words from the page are used; and it may not be the words you want. This can mean the difference between a visit and a sale or someone opting to move along;

I have only seen this new (?) feature in relation to US hosted sites so far. A search on a few popular Aussie web sites with a .com.au extension didn’t produce the same result. It may just be a test rather than a feature that will stick.

Google certainly seems to be doing a lot of tweaking in regards to presentation of results lately; lots of little changes here and there and there’s probably a good lesson in that too. Lots of changes too fast can scare folks away; so like boiling a frog, best to turn the heat up slow so it doesn’t notice.

Disclaimer - I have never boiled a frog, nor do I condone such a practice.

Disclaimer 2 - Boiling frogs will *not* get you better search engine rankings

But here’s some things that will:

Learn more about optimizing title tags and meta tags.

More search engine optimization tips