Double Listings On Page One
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I've been noticing a trend over the past month and a half. My sites that use to get more than one page listed in certain SERPs are now being adjusted. It almost looks manual but I know it is most likely a change in the algorithm. Let's say I had a SERP where my site was showing two different sub-pages in a single SERP at #4 and #6 are now having one page being pushed up to #3 but the other page is being pushed back past the first page.
I'm not worried about penalizations or loss of value. I have been seeing this accross many of my client's sites. I just wanted to confirm that others were seeing it as well (so I'm not going crazy) and/or if Google has made any announcements or leaks regarding this shift.
Maybe it's just my sites coming of age or something but I would love to be able to explain it more knowledgeably than with a "Google might be doing this".
BTW - This is not effecting any of my Brand SERPs.
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I used to have lots of #1 - #2 and even #1 - #2 - #3 - (sometimes #4) listings.
I still have some - but not as many.
Over the past few months Google is still allowing some of these but it is much harder to get two of your pages listed in the top ten positions of the SERPs.
You can really stack them up on the second and third page... but Google seems to be forcing more domain diversity in the top ten positions.
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The Google Penguin update had two major changes that impacted the algorithm.
1. It penalized many sites that it felt was gaming the rankings.
2. It rewarded trusted sites with better rankings.
The net result of these two updates is that trusted sites will not only obtain several rankings on the first page, but will get multiple rankings on all subsequent search results pages. This doesn't leave a lot of SERP space for the rest of the competition.
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That's it!!! I'm not crazy.
Now I am happy. I really have to pay more attention to that main blog. -
Yeah, I remembered reading something on their blog.
"More domain diversity. [launch codename "Horde", project codename "Domain Crowding"] Sometimes search returns too many results from the same domain. This change helps surface content from a more diverse set of domains."
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/05/search-quality-highlights-53-changes.html
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Have you come across any documented change in they way they are returning SERPs?
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I've see this as well. It seems like google wants more diversity.
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