UPDATE: Some Hope for Small Publishers
11 August 2013 We have seen before where a new feature like this only works for big guys in the beginning but eventually rolls out for anyone. Authorship would be a case in point. I set it up when it first came out, but waited several frustrating months where only very big names were showing up with their author photos in the SERPs. Then all of a sudden, a valve was turned, and my and many others’ photos started showing.
Another small encouragement: one observer pointed me to a quote on the official Google Inside Search blog where the writer promises that this feature will surface “some great articles from lesser-known publications and blogs”.
We found one example of that already. A search for “leg” brings up this post in the “in-depth” box: http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/breaking_down_the_single_leg_squat which is from an obscure blog with a PageRank of 1.
So there may be hope for the rest of us!
Finally seeing some examples of the new Google “In-depth articles” search results feature in my Google Search. Below is a screen capture from a search for “social media.” Also found such results for “google search” and “national debt.”
I wrote about this new feature yesterday at https://www.hivedigital.com/2013/08/06/google-in-depth-article-search-results-how-to-qualify-your-content/
Observations
- As promised, these only seem to show for short-tail, very broad subjects. And not all subjects. For example, “urban renewal” turns up on “in-depth article” results.
- Although I read someone yesterday who claimed a Google rep told him they would show in the middle of the SERP, all the examples I’m finding are showing at the very bottom.
- In all the examples I’ve found so far, the articles are from very highly-known publications.
Initial Reaction
My first disappointment is the thought that it will be difficult to impossible for anyone below the level of a +The New York Times or +Rolling Stone to get shown in this. My only hope would be if they either expand the number of results shown (not likely) or expand the number of topics, or open it to slightly more long-tail topics.
+Pete Meyers the Moz data doctor, tells me he is going to accumulate data on these over the next several days, so I’ll look forward to what he finds.
Related articles
