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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'Future SERP: A Glimpse at Google
2014'

Posted by Dr-Pete
Watching Google change can quickly become an obsession, and it's easy to jump
at every shadow when they test thousands of ideas per year (and roll out
hundreds). This post is an attempt to take all of the things I've seen in the
past six months and tell a story driven by real data. This is the story of how I
think Google will look by the end of 2014, and what that implies about their
direction and core philosophy.

Two data sources
(1) MozCast Feature Alert

In April of 2012, I launched "Project Algo Alert", a prototype that would
later become MozCast. What was originally one "weather" station, designed to
measure daily fluctuations in top 10 rankings across 1000 keywords, has evolved
into 11 stations and three unique systems. One of those systems is Feature
Alert, which was based on a simple idea â how could we detect when Google
launched new SERP features, without any prior knowledge of what those features
would be?


Feature Alert solves this problem by cataloging the basic building blocks of
Google's source code, the container names and IDs in CSS. Let's say for example,
that Feature Alert sees the following chunk of HTML/CSS code:




The system checks each building block against an archive, and if
"ads-container c mnr-c" is a new object, it's captured and I'm alerted that
something new happened. When I built Feature Alert, I thought something new
might pop up a couple of times a month. As of writing this post, the system has
captured 2,441 unique building blocks.


A side effect of the system is that, at large scale, it frequently catches
Google in the act of testing new features and UI changes. Keep in mind that
Google ran 7,018 "live traffic experiments" in 2012 â while we probably
capture only a small number of them, these tests allow us to get a glimpse into
what's coming next. While any given change may be rejected (Google launched just
over 9% of the changes they tested last year), some changes appear repeatedly in
testing and in different formats over time, strongly suggesting that Google is
intent on launch.

(2) Mobile feature launches

Google is terrified of mobile â the ad landscape that drove 84% of
Google's revenue in Q3 is a completely different animal on mobile, and consumer
behavior is evolving rapidly. One clear pattern in 2013 is that many major UI
changes hit mobile before they hit desktop. Google is designing for tomorrow's
devices and is desperate to make sure that ad CTR and CPC don't fall as mobile
search volume increases and new devices (like Google Glass) come onto the scene.


When we see a new feature in testing and then realize it already exists on
mobile, odds are good that that change is coming to desktop soon. By combining
these two data sources, we've been able to paint a picture of Google's near
future. Based on the past few months, I'm going to make six predictions for 2014
and turn those six predictions into two conceptual screenshots.

Six predictions

For each of the six predictions below, I'll provide evidence from MozCast
and/or mobile search, along with my confidence in the prediction. These
predictions are grouped to tell a story, but are otherwise in no particular
order:

(1) New Knowledge Graph â 98%

Since its launch, the vast majority of Google's Knowledge Graph has been built
on a very few data sources (including Wikipedia, Freebase, and the CIA
Factbook). The core problem is that these sources are limited and only work well
for highly structured data. To expand, Google needs to extract answers from
their entire index of the web. Put simply, Google needs to be able to create
answers from content. Over the past few months, we've seen extensive testing of
Knowledge Graph entries like this one:




Notice the "In context" section, which is the bulk of the informational
content â this is entirely driven by third-party websites. All of the blue
links are links to additional Google searches, but the light-gray links show the
original sources. Put simply, Google will soon be building their Knowledge Graph
on your data.


It's interesting to note that the queries we're seeing this on seem to be
fairly broad and/or have a generic intent. When Google launched "in-depth
articles", they made the following statement:


To understand a broad topic, sometimes you need more than a quick answer. Our
research indicates perhaps 10% of people's daily information needs fit this
category.


It's very likely that this new Knowledge Graph approach is an attempt to solve
the same problem, and that these entries will appear on searches that previously
had no Knowledge Graph data. Long story short, this isn't just a change â
it's an expansion.


Knowledge Graph drives many variations of answer boxes, and so it's not
surprising that we're also seeing new answer boxes in testing. This answer box
was captured from a search for "is pneumonia contagious":




Unlike traditional answer boxes, this information is being extracted from the
index (in this case, kidshealth.org) and treated more like an organic search
result. Given that we've seen multiple variations of new answer boxes and
multiple tests of these new Knowledge Graph entries, my confidence is very high
that some version of these features will roll out in the next few months.

(2) Revamped advertising format â 95%

Recently, we've seen Google aggressively testing a new and somewhat surprising
advertising format (and outside sources have confirmed these tests). It looks
something like this (the search was "paella recipe"):




I've added the (...) in the middle section, which is more organic results, but
the divider marks the top and bottom AdWords blocks. Essentially, Google has
added the marker [Ad] to each advertisement, but they've removed the current
background color and have formatted everything else to be nearly identical to an
organic listing.


It may seem surprising that Google would visibly mark ads in this way. I
suspect that this isn't entirely by choice, but is related to Google's ongoing
battle with regulators and their pending settlement with the European Union. If
this move seems unlikely to you, consider a second piece of evidence. This is a
current search for "paella pans" via my mobile phone (all mobile screenshots
come from Safari/iOS7 on an iPhone 5S):




This new format has been running on mobile browsers for a while now, and
Google's widespread testing makes it look like a foregone conclusion for desktop
search. This change will have huge implications on both organic and paid CTR in
2014, regardless of the final form. Expect Google to also test and iterate
quickly when the new ad format launches.

(3) Ads outside of three blocks â 33%

This prediction is much more speculative and I have no clear evidence to
support it, but the potential impact is big enough that I'm going to say it out
loud. Once Google is individually labeling ads in the left-hand column
(right-hand column ads only get one [Ads] marker at the top, at least in
testing), ads will become stand-alone units. In other words, Google will no
longer be constrained by fixed blocks at the top and bottom. So, what's to keep
the test above from turning into something more like this (the next image is
conceptual, not a captured test):




Individual ads could be interspersed in organic results, impacting the overall
effectiveness of any given position in those results. Once Google has the
flexibility to move ads, I see no compelling reason to believe that they won't
test new options to improve ad effectiveness. I'll conservatively put the odds
of this change at one in three.

(4) Loss of result count/stats â 80%

This one has serious implications for SEOs, but I think it's a move that makes
sense for Google. Let's look at the entire screenshot for the "paella recipe"
search we dug into previously:




Notice something missing? There's no light-gray result count at the top of
this page ("About 3,270,000 resultsâ"). Google has entirely removed that
line of text in this test screen. Truthfully, as much as we rely on these
numbers for SEO research (especially with search operators like "site:"), I
suspect the additional data has almost no value for everyday search users. It's
taking up prime real estate, and Google could very likely get rid of it.


Scroll back up to the mobile search for "paella pans" and you'll see that
result count data is already gone from mobile. On a mobile phone, that data
simply takes up too much valuable space. It's possible that Google could
preserve the data for operators and certain searches, but I have no clear
evidence either way. If you're a search marketer, I would be prepared to lose
this data in 2014.

(5) Boxed design for #1 result â 90%

The current incarnation of an expanded #1 organic result has been around for a
while â it has an indented set of site-links (up to six, on a normal
search, or ten on domain searches) that each have links and short snippets.
Google has been testing a number of variations on boxed designs for expanded #1
results, such as the following:




Notice that the entire entry is boxes, as are the individual site-links. The
main link is in a larger-than-normal font, and some of the site-links have
arrows that pull up related links. Google has been testing many variations on
this theme for a couple of months now, but consider that one variation already
exists in mobile search (this is a search for our own brand, as Ra Sushi
generates local results on mobile):




While the mobile result is constrained to a single column, the overall listing
is boxed, with clear dividers between the main result and site-links. Google has
been testing variations on this one for a while, and they seem to be worried
about getting it right, but by the end of 2014, I'm almost certain that some
variation on boxed results for the #1 organic position will launch.

(6) Boxed design for entire page â 50%

It's easy to assume that this boxed design is purely cosmetic, but I believe
it goes much deeper than that. Consider the look of another Google product,
Google Now (via my iPhone 5S):




Google Now is divided into what Google calls "cards", distinct units of
information that are individually boxed and can be mixed, matched, and sorted as
Google sees fit. Notice how similar this format looks to Google's mobile search
results. As Google expands into new formats, including wearable technology like
Google Glass, and as screen sizes diverge â from phones to tablets to
desktop and everything in between â it's going to be increasingly
important that they can escape the constraints of a single, fixed-format
display. Cards are a natural transition to a flexible and dynamic SERP, allowing
Google to mix and match depending on the device you're using.


Google Now has already started appearing in personalized search results.
Consider the following Knowledge Graph entry, produced when I do a brand search
for "amazon" while being logged into my Google account:




Google has inserted a personalized card into the Knowledge Graph entry that
indicates I have recent orders. Clicking on details produces an answer box
containing yet more personalized information. Even the Knowledge Graph entry
itself and current answer boxes are card-like, with clear outlines and
separation from organic results. Answer boxes are tailor-made for mobile search,
and so are Google Now cards.


So, what if Google took this idea to its logical conclusion and created an
entire SERP that was divided into individual card-like units? This is how mobile
search already looks, as you can see from multiple examples above. This would be
a big change for desktop, and I have not seen an entirely card-based SERP in
testing, but I'll put the odds of that development at about even (50/50).

Two SERP concepts

So, what might Google look like by the end of 2014? I've come up with two
artist's conceptions (I created them, so take the phrase "artist" loosely).
While some aspects of these concepts are based in reality, these are not real
Google results (live or in testing). The first is based on my recent flight on
Virgin America and a fictional brand search for "virgin america" (click on the
image for a full-sized version):





Here we have a completely boxed (card-style) SERP, with the new ad format,
Google Now in the Knowledge Graph, and the redesigned #1 organic result with
site-links. I've added the mobile background color and removed result count
data. While I don't think Google will adopt this exact look and feel, it
combines many of the data-driven predictions in this post.


Just for fun, let's look at a second variation. Here we have a Knowledge Graph
result using "In context" data from 3rd-party sources, plus an answer box
parsing information from a 3rd-party source. The first ad is placed after the
answer box, and a second ad has been inserted after the top two organic results.
Again, this is purely conjecture:





While I don't expect Google to look exactly like either of these concepts by
the end of 2014, I think the data strongly suggests that many of these concepts
will be in play, and Google will have shifted strongly toward a more card-based
design. Add in the expansion of Knowledge Graph and Google's rush to get mobile
right, and I expect significant changes to SEO in the next year. The best we can
do is keep our eyes open.


This post was adapted from a presentation at ThenSome San Francisco, called
"Future SERP: The Face of Google in 2014" (available on SlideShare). Thanks to
SEOGadget for hosting the event and to the audience for a great discussion that
helped me vet and develop some of these ideas.
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