Strange Google SERP Layout: Anyone?
-
I haven't been able to repeat this, but I just saw a strange Google SERP layout. The screenshot is attached below. Has anyone else seen something like this?
I kind of rubbed my eyes and wondered 'if it was kicking in'.
-
My response was pretty delayed on this one. No, I don't sync my phone with anything. Granted, I have my email accounts connected - but I'm too paranoid to sync it my machines. Anything with that many certificates, out of the box, isn't getting that kind of access.
It's been months and it hasn't happened again. The Googles just probably crossed my internet tubes for a second.
-
That is strange, looks like a mobile result for sure. Best guess is you fooled google with a mobile emulator and they served a mobile results page too you.
the screenshot is also showing your location history, do you sync your chrome browser across your phone/table/desktop? I do this and sometimes run into a situation where my phone will pull a recent search I did on my desktop computer. Maybe your desktop chrome browser was pulling a recent search you did on your phone and displaying the mobile results..... regardless this looks to just be a random fluke.
-
I can't tether unless I pay my current cell provider more money.
I'm hoping this was a glitch. I don't want The Googles to Mobile All The Things. 
I haven't been able to repeat it with user agent spoofing via dev console. -
Did you leave tethering on by accident perhaps? I haven't seen that before when I've tethered, but you never know.
I do think we've at least determined that Google, for whatever reason, thinks you're mobile and that's why your SERP looks that way.
-
It was really strange. This was definitely on a desktop with Chrome browser. I thought the Googles had lost their collective mind for a moment.
I checked my user agent emulation, and it was set to spoof Nexus. Apparently I left it on for doing some light/quick/possibly-not-the-best device testing. Though I had never saw results like that on a desktop, even with the accidental spoof.
One thing is for sure, a collective 10-12 hours of sleep up to this point is probably not helping.
Edit: I just realized I'm charging my phone over USB, but I don't sync it.
-
I'm seeing the location is mentioned as from your phone (down at the very bottom).
-
Hello,
Not certain, but it looks like a mobile SERP. Looks identical to that on my phone. Maybe your browser just had a hiccup?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Destination SERP Feature?
Hey guys, So my boss was surfin the web today on Google and came across the what looks like destination cards with an interest drop down. I've attached a screen shot of what it looks like. I couldn't find anything about this on the internet and was wondering if this was a new feature? Either way I guess I just want to know 1. what this SERP feature is called and 2. if there is any information on how google chooses what places to show here. It looks like, for this query anyway, that it's a combination of popular places in New England and my search history. Thanks! PrBMk
Algorithm Updates | | Myles920 -
Very strange, inconsistent and unpredictable Google ranking
I have been searching through these forums and haven't come across someone that faces the same issue I am. The folks on the Google forums are certain this is an algorithm issue, but I just can't see the logic in that because this appears to be an issue fairly unique to me. I'll take you through what I've gone through. Sorry for it being long. Website URL: https://fenixbazaar.com 1. In early February, I made the switch to https with some small hiccups. Overall however the move was smooth, had redirects all in place, sitemap, indexing was all fine. 2. One night, my organic traffic dropped by almost 100%. All of my top-ranking articles completely disappeared from rank. Top keyword searches were no longer yielding my best performing articles on the front page of results, nor on the last page of results. My pages were still being indexed, but keyword searches weren't delivering my pages in results. I went from 70-100 active users to 0. 3. The next morning, everything was fine. Traffic back up. Top keywords yielding results for my site on the front page. All was back to normal. Traffic shot up. Only problem was the same issue happened that night, and again for the next three nights. Up and down. 4. I had a developer and SEO guy look into my backend to make sure everything was okay. He said there were some redirection issues but nothing that would cause such a significant drop. No errors in Search Console. No warnings. 5. Eventually, the issue stopped and my traffic improved back to where it was. Then everything went great: the site was accepted into Google News, I installed AMP pages perfectly and my traffic boomed for almost 2 weeks. 6. At this point numerous issues with my host provider, price increases, and incredibly outdated cpanel forced me to change hosts. I did without any issues, although I lost a number of articles albeit low-traffic ones in the move. These now deliver 404s and are no longer indexed in the sitemap. 7. After the move there were a number of AMP errors, which I resolved and now I sit at 0 errors. Perfect...or so it seems. 8. Last week I applied for hsts preload and am awaiting submission. My site was in working order and appeared set to get submitted. I applied after I changed hosts. 9. The past 5 days or so has seen good traffic, fantastic traffic to my AMP pages, great Google News tracking, linking from high-authority sites. Good performance all round. 10. I wake up this morning to find 0 active people on my site. I do a Google search and notice my site isn't even the first result whenever I do an actual search for my name. The site doesn't even rank for its own name! My site is still indexed but search results do not yield results for my actual sites. Check Search Console and realised the sitemap had been "processed" yesterday with most pages indexed, which is weird because it was submitted and processed about a week earlier. I resubmitted the sitemap and it appears to have been processed and approved immediately. No changes to search results. 11. All top-ranking content that previously placed in carousal or "Top Stories" in Google News have gone. Top-ranking keywords no longer bring back results with my site: I went through the top 10 ranking keywords for my site, my pages don't appear anywhere in the results, going as far back as page 20 (last page). The pages are still indexed when I check, but simply don't appear in search results. It's happening all over again! Is this an issue any of you have heard of before? Where a site is still being indexed, but has been completely removed from search results, only to return within a few hours? Up and down? I suspect it may be a technical issue, first with the move to https, and now with changing hosts. The fact the sitemap says processed yesterday, suggests maybe it updated and removed the 404s (there were maybe 10), and now Google is attempting to reindexed? Could this be viable? The reason I am skeptical of it being an algorithm issue is because within a matter of hours my articles are ranking again for certain keywords. And this issue has only happened after a change to the site has been applied. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | fenixbazaar0 -
Deindexed from Google images Sep17th
We have a travel website that has been ranked in Google for 12-14years. The site produces original images with branding on them and have been for years ranking well. There's been no site changes. We have a Moz spamscore 1/17 and Domain Authority 59. Sep 17th all our images just disappeared from Google Image Search. Even searching for our domain with keyword photo results in nothing. I've checked our Search console and no email from Google and I see no postings on Moz and others relating to search algo changes with Images. I'm at a loss here.. does anyone have some advice?
Algorithm Updates | | danta2 -
Google domain search
Hello all, I'm a newbie to SEO, so you'll have to bear with me. I just started a website LangleyHomeSaerch.com a few months ago and am having trouble ranking with google. When I search "Langley Home Search" with Yahoo or Bing, it comes up on the first page. However when I search it with google it doesn't seem to rank even in the first few hundred pages. The only way I can get a match from google is if I search "Langley HomeSearch" or "LangleyHomeSearch". I know due to google's newer algorithms that there is less importance put on domain name matches, but is this normal, or is there anything I can do to improve it? Thx, Colby Langley, BC
Algorithm Updates | | colbygedak0 -
Google News Results
This is more of an observation than anything else. Has anyone noticed any strange results in Google News, in terms of very old content hitting page 1? My example is football, I support Newcastle so keep checking for the latest transfer failure or humiliation. First page for couple of days is showing old articles (April, May) from the same source rather than the usual spread of tabloid and broadsheet news.
Algorithm Updates | | MickEdwards0 -
Would Google Remove Pages for Inactivity?
Hi, I've been watching the Total Indexed number for 4 domains that I work with for the last few months. In Google Webmaster Tools three of them were holding steady up until August-September, when suddenly they started declining by hundreds of thousands of URLs a week. I've asked my IT department and they say they haven't done anything technically different in the last few months that would affect indexation. I've also searched on google and on search marketing blogs to see if anyone else has experience this to no avail. As you can see in the image, the "Not Selected" pages have not increased so it appears this is not due to duplicate content (of which we have a lot). However, the "Ever Crawled" number is increasing. The only reasonable answer that I can conclude is that Google is now de-indexing inactive URLs? Anyone have a better answer? yIYDm.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | OfficeFurn0 -
Did Google just give away how Penguin works?
At SMX during the You&A with Matt Cutts, Danny asked why the algo update was called Penguin. Matt said: "We thought the codename actually might give too much info about how it works so the lead engineer got to choose." Last night Google released their 39 updates for the month of May. Among them was this: "Improvements to Penguin. [launch codename "twref2", project codename "Page Quality"] This month we rolled out a couple minor tweaks to improve signals and refresh the data used by the penguin algorithm." Whoa, codename twref2 for Penguin improvement? Is this giving us an insight about how it works? I would guess the ref2 means second refresh perhaps. But tw I am not sure about. What do you think? Is there a hidden insight here?
Algorithm Updates | | DanDeceuster1 -
Google Algo Update In Que. What consititues over optimization?
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401732,00.asp According to this, Google is bringing the hammer down soon on another 10-20% of the search results. While we don't advocate keyword stuffing, exchanging links, or anything too risky I am still concerned. Do we know if the example "perfectly optimized page"; http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization is now going to be penalty bait? Is this over stuffing? Also, how might this effect ecommerce sites in particular?
Algorithm Updates | | iAnalyst.com2