New Google Feature Could Keep Traffic From Websites

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I received this article via email today and i was a bit omg can that really happen.

Well what i'm talking about is New Google Feature Could Keep Traffic From Websites.

taken from that article:

Google introduced a new feature for search results pages this week, which displays so-called facts in the snippets of specific results. It's yet another way of Google displaying information on a page that could mean the user doesn't have to bother clicking through to a third-party website. The feature is called "structured snippets"

I'm thinking what about all the traffic i'm trying to build to my sites with this new feature will my efforts be a waste of time. Then that leads me onto what about internet marketing as a whole. This could seriously damage IM efforts across the board.

Here's an example of what this new Google feature would look like:

Say you search for "nikon d7100″. this is the example for this result



Google is displaying little "facts" that it deems interesting and relevant, and is doing so algorithmically. Here's another one for the query "superman" as shown on a mobile device:



Even though Google admit they will run into some inaccuracies that's not stopping them from running with it. They have already pulled in 1.6 billion "facts" with about 271 million of them ranked as "confident facts". These are the ones, which Google believes there to be a 90% chance of being true.


On how Google collects the information for structured snippets, Pierre Far, a webmaster analyst said in a Google+ post:

It's not structured data (schema.org) driven! Instead, it's powered by algos that try to find interesting tables within webpages to extract the key facts related to the topic of the page. This deeper understanding of the contents, plus some quality checks, gives us a new kind of snippet.

As Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points out, these snippets mean users will have even less reason to click on third-party results, as it will mean more instant information right from the Google page.


Google seem to want users to stay on Google forever and not let users click through. AND its that click through I and every other IM should be worry about.

Google seems to value this concept greatly, even at the expense of the occasional inaccuracy, and certainly at the expense of sending traffic to other websites.

Google has said it time and time again, but Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt reminded everybody once again a couple weeks ago: "We built Google for users, not websites."


I also got from the article and the comments that basically Google will be copyright infringing "stealing our content" to put on google search results thus slowing down and maybe stopping the user clicking through.

Yet if we copy other people's content we can get penalised because of it.

So fellow IM what are your thoughts on this. Am i over reacting or should i be very worried indeed.

I would love your insights, opinions and maybe solutions on how to move forward and profit from IM with this new feature in place.
#feature #google #traffic #websites
  • Profile picture of the author DavidGregory
    Bit naughty really as you said it's potentially releasing the information the visitor needed thus them not having to visit your site for the answer. I can't see this working good for anyone, makes no sense.
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    • Profile picture of the author bthankful
      Hi DavidGregory

      I know not good for us but great stuff for Google. Is this the time to stop focusing on Google as the only search engine there is?
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  • Profile picture of the author salegurus
    Great but this would be of more use in the right forum: Search Engine Optimization
    Signature
    Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

    ― George Carlin
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    • Profile picture of the author bthankful
      Hi salegurus

      I'm sorry i placed it in the wrong section. Should i remove then and copy and paste in the Search Engine Optimization search.
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