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The Evolution of the Google-SERPs

It is amazing how notably the Google-SERPs changed over the course of last year. I am not talking about content or ranking but the way the results are displayed: if today, you take a look at the SERPs from one year ago, you will be hard pressed to recognize them. In this blogpost, I want to document the gradual change using the keyword “angela merkel”. The screenshot to the right (click on it to enlarge) shows the Google-SERPs from about one year ago. Searchfield, one AdWords-spot, 10 results. Only the related search display at the end of the page indicates that Google can think of quite some more informations. They started out by integrating Google-News:



While at first just a Onebox above the results, Google-News is now part of Universal Search which means it can also show up within or below the “normal” results. The next thing Google tried out was the integration of video. While not very appropriate in this case, videos (it seems at Google that is synonymous with You Tube) are an integral part of many SERPs:



They are also trying out different display methods: 1 video, two videos besides each other, three or even four videos in one block; at the moment, Google is trying out many different variations and seems to be (automatically) choosing the best method of display for the queried keyword.



At the beginning of the year, they added blog-posts. For this they are using the Google Blogsearch, which, while also a part of Universal Search, until then, could only be observed at the end of the page:



Their newest development are horizontal sitelinks, which take up noticeably less space, which means they can be shown more often than the box with the “regular” sitelinks:




To add some color to the results, Google finished up by adding pictures to Universal Search:



If we now compare the initial state from about a year ago with the current SERPs, it is quite amazing how vast the changes actually are. Because Google regularly added small changes into the SERPs instead of one big cut, I did not notice it that much.