Google Search Results Changes

Google have announced changes to the way they will display search results for some websites. For those of us who curate our sites, there are a few things that we should consider.

Firstly, web site owners can now allocate a globally recognised name to our website which can be more descriptive than your domain name. This can be done by some simple markup changes. Google say that it needs to "be reasonably similar to your domain name", but you can customise how people see your site referenced in search engines. More details here.

Breadcrumbs - the Google Way

In the above article, Google also talk about structuring your "breadcrumbs" and how this will affect your site in search results.

As shown in the image here, Google will show your sites navigation structure using the breadcrumb style. I think it's a more user-friendly way to show the structure of a website. We use breadcrumbs in our websites so why not use them in search results.

You will need to make some changes to the markup on your site to make this work, but the work is not significant. I will expect that Google will probably "reward" web sites that structure navigation data according to these recommendations. The sheer fact that your site will look different to others in search results might be the only reason you need to jump in and make these changes.

Hopefully you find this information useful. I would encourage you to read the articles yourself and decide if the changes are applicable to you and your sites.

Til next time ...