Google suggest: Now with quick links
Not sure how long this has been there but it seems Google are trialing another tweak to Google Suggest (auto-complete) where certain brand names have direct links to their homepage, allowing users to completely bypass the SERPs. Here are some examples:
Amazon:
eBay:
even SEOmoz:
but interestingly enough, not MySpace:
It is interesting to see which brand are appearing with the direct link and which are not.
I wonder if the set of sites is hand picked or from an algorithm based around domain trust and click-throughs?
Also, what could this mean for sites who rank for competitor’s names (who won’t have their pages displayed if the user doesn’t hit the SERPs)? Your thoughts in comments below.
Categories: SEO
Only getting this with Google.com so far. Haven’t picked too much up yet, but there are a couple of sites that seem to be getting matches on terms that are pretty generic so I dont think they are hand picked.
http://www.diynetwork.com/ for instnace will be pleased to be getting thier url suggested for the term diy.
@Matthew Oxley
Oh yeh – they’ll be very happy with that! Trying to find other similar terms but haven’t found any.
Interesting development there Stephen, I’m trying to resist playing all day to find more terms/brands now… I’d definitely be interested to see how many more companies start appearing and whether this will be a case of the ‘Google Gang’ being given some special treatment in the SERPs.
weirdly it recognises bing and not yahoo.
@yoshimi_s
Yahoo is dead to us now.
Woowwww check that out! I use google.co.uk for suggestoftheday.com so I’ve never seen this before. It’s got big implications for generic searches like you said Matthew – although in the case of ‘DIY’ (and prob many others) the brand name just happens to include a generic keyword.
Re. sites that rank for competitor’s names – well, from the brand’s POV competitor’s shouldn’t be getting their traffic anyway
Be really interesting to see if they roll this out anywhere else. It’s definitely something new for brands to monitor (and try to game!)