Google Site Links Updates

Recently, you may have seen some changes to the way that Google is displaying their results for big brands.  Google has been putting an emphasis on rewarding big brands this year.  The first way that they did this was by allowing the same domain to show up in the first 3-5 spots, above the fold.  Now, they made their Google site links a lot larger and it takes up the whole top part of the fold.  This gives you easier acces to the top pages for the brand that you are searching for.  Google is just making search so much easier for you right?  Not so fast.

Let’s think about what is going on here.  By searching for a brand, then you already know that you are looking for that brand’s website.  The only way for others to show up is by purchasing the one, maybe two pay-per-click ads that are on the right hand side.  This is now prime real estate.  So what happens when the demand for something increases?  The price also increases.  So Google is going to be making more money off the bidding war that is going to occur due to these changes to the site links.  But Google is all about making search easier for you.

Once again, not so fast my friend (insert Lee Corso voice here).

What does this mean for smaller brands now?  How are you supposed to compete with the big brands?  SEO was supposed to help put smaller brands on a level playing field.  Well, there are two different scenarios here depending on what time of small business you are.  Another player in the industry or an affiliate.  If you are an affiliate than you still have a possibility of ranking below the fold and getting traffic from those that venture below the fold and below the site links.  It will be interesting to see heat maps of search results pages with the new larger Google site links.  As an affiliate, continue you content and link building and rank the in the 3rd, maybe 4th position and put your self in the best position possible.

If you are another player in the game, another brand in the industry then you are already at a disadvantage.  If somebody is searching for the brand name of a competitor than chances you, you are not going to be ranking organically for that search phrase anyway.  So there’s not much lost in that situation.

This is still new and we will not know exactly how it will play out until some more time passes by.