Midpage Results

Google Midpage Results

by Donna O'Hanlon
of http://www.oyster-web.co.uk

Last updated: 12 Sep 2007

For some time, Google experimented with search results by inserting results that it thinks could refine a users results. Google added a 'see results for' section halfway down their results page. This facility extracts popular searches that contain the words or phrases searched for by the user. These results are held on the results page and kept separate from the natural search engine results by a thin
blue line as shown below, highlighted in green.

For example, if the term 'office' is entered into Google, the search engine will return the results for 'office shoes' under the natural results with a Link to that page.Google search engine has always been surrounded by speculation regaring their experimental new features as most of them have never been implemented, so it was surprising to the search engine community when Google took the midway results out of the experimental phase and made it a permanent feature of the Google results. After testing, the midpage results became a part of the official user interface.

This has significant ramifications for the SEO community. The midpage results will reduce the number of natural results on a page. This means that a site that usually ranks on page one can be taken off the first page to accomodate the recommended midpage results.

For those who are carrying out seo for clients, it would be sensible to keep this feature in mind when selecting Keywords to optimise the site for. Try to avoid phrases or words that produce midpage results.