Google eliminating domains from search results

Edit:

In other words, they are giving the option for websites to become anonymous links.

No one will adopt this except viral brands and shady/fly-by-night sites.

How are you going to brand yourself where people will know what to type into their browser with thousands of extensions floating around? Makes no sense.

Fail

I know when I browse search results I like to look at the actual *domains* of the sites and remember them myself if I want to visit them at another time, I'm sure others too.

My comment on this:

Very interesting. Not sure it really matters if the extension itself is seen in search since a click on what one needs will reveal it in the address bar. However, it does pose an instant set-back to those with new gTLD’s that were hoping to get that initial exposure.

It also lends a hand to slowing down the new gTLD awareness. The less we educate about the new gTLD’s the longer it will take to make them a standard for businesses to use confidently.

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I'm not sure Google fully thought this through and I wouldn't be surprised if they change their mind at the last minute or restructure how they do it prior to roll-out.

Though, it appears they may be trying to eliminate Keyword value in extensions completely due to new found data on combined manipulation efforts of name + extension in SEM campaigns. At the moment, the extension itself is counted as part of the keyword phrase in a search query (E.g. Dangerous.Sports would get valued for the phase "Dangerous Sports" and might even get a little more consideration than DangerousSports.com since "Dangerous.Sports" is the Exact search term, where as "Dangerous Sports Com" is not exact. (Granted, the only way to know for sure would be if both domains had the same marketing efforts, same SEO campaigns, etc.)

Maybe someone that owns an undeveloped .com Phrase should buy the gTLD version and duplicate search efforts on both with slightly different content so there's no duplicate penalty and see which one fares better developing at the same time with a level playing field.

Of course, I'm just speculating and probably way off base with that conspiracy theory. However, it does make sense as a round about way to make keyword valuing a level playing field for targeting if extensions them self dropped off the value meter and only the meat before the TLD counted.

Guess we'll see as things play out more.

This is only on mobile (at least for now). It appears to take the URL structure and break it down to breadcrumbs - I haven't seen it in the wild and don't know if using breadcrumb* / sitename schema markup will always take precedence over Google's own presentation decisions, based upon the URL.

First thing that comes to mind for me is that it could obfuscate the actual site you're clicking on and leave the door open for scammers/phishing. Also will be interesting to see what they might do to come up with a "site name" in the absence of schema markup. How would they handle conflicting "site names" in different industries or locales? Tony's Pizza in NY vs Tony's Pizza in Seattle?

It's a presentation change, not a ranking algo change - it should not affect how domains are used for ranking, however text in the url matching the query (if any) may not in some cases be seen by searchers which could affect mobile CTR.

Though, it appears they may be trying to eliminate Keyword value in extensions completely due to new found data on combined manipulation efforts of name + extension in SEM campaigns.

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Google doesn't give two craps about domains - new gtld's or otherwise. If they want to dial back on the ranking importance of any kind of domain all they need to do is expand on the EMD update - they don't have to make a special mobile presentation change to do it . It does however seem to put more emphasis on brands - no surprise there.

Lots of changes in mobile search this month!

* actually breadcrumb schema markup is not being supported by Google yet. The breadcrumbs will come from the URL structure for now, per a G+ discussion I just read.

Update on this:
- for most sites the Domain is being displayed as the first breadcrumb item
- sites like yelp, Angie's list, Home Depot Are showing site name instead of domain. Didn't look at source to see if they had the markup, but they're "well known" entities so in this case it would make sense for Google to assign those site names.
- government sites seem to have site name and (.gov) - again, I haven't looked to see if this is from google or schema markup.

This direction/change is not surprising, tough I am surprised how 'early' it is happening. This will stay and grow. If you couple this 'presentation' change with rapidly increasing mobile/server processing power, it makes sense. As it is, search results are getting more context aware and also more local. Schema will never be used by average user, though search servers use taxonomy to provide better context in place of schema. Till servers get better at inferring the schema info, it will help if schema info is provided by 'good team member' sites!

I was expecting domain names to become redundant in couple of decades, now I would not be surprised if domain names as we know them, are not there for more then a decade. Domain names will not go away but they will not be in the dot form and tlds won't matter.

@Eric_Lyon, this makes me wonder if SEO/SEM impact of this is 'accidental' and due to how change in search is evolving/required? Seems like ... this change was required for our grand plans and we are letting you know so your SEO/SEM is not impacted suddenly?

@tomcarl, RE the dependency on domain name, .... For an average user, the domain names are not really important now, most non-techie/non-domainers I know search the company name or website name, which is usually again the company name, and go to the first link that comes up in search results. Mobile apps play a big role, as average user launches the app based in its visual icon, which is reducing need for sites.

like @enlytend, I see "obfuscate the actual site you're clicking on and leave the door open for scammers/phishing" to be a serious issue but I would not be surprised to see search results showing favicon of authenticated common sites next to company name soon. SSL certs also mitigate this problem somewhat.

Just like how IOT is going to radically change the shopping experience, where card cards and manned checkout points, will practically disappear in few years. It is not that companies want to do away with credit cards but card swiping will not be required. Eventually tap and pay will be on its way out. Why tap n pay when you will be 'auto' charged while leaving the store ( or have a drone deliver everything to you ). Just part of shopping experience evolution, just as this change of showing company names/bread-crumbs.

I understand there are a lot of people that type in the site name on Google to find it, but when you have thousands of extensions, it's possible to have several dozen sites with the same name. I don't think any business/developer should be satisfied by simply showing their site name in results and not having the actual address to their website displayed unless it's a viral brand like Wikipedia, eBay, etc. It makes no sense from a marketing standpoint.

I don't think it's a smart move to rely so much on Google while limiting your identity/brand on the web as just being a search phrase on a search engine, which is why I doubt many sites will adopt it.

This move is basically making the entire web that much more dependant on Google than it already is. If you have no brand identity where people are seeing the direct link/web address to your name, it's like not having your own website at all. Whoever embraces this might as well build every project on a Google subdomain or a blogger account, they'd have full control over you anyway if all you are is an 'addressless' keyword search result.

tomcarl said:

when you have thousands of extensions, it's possible to have several dozen sites with the same name.

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This is valid point. Guess there will be lot more UDRPs

In long run, domain names will lose their importance. Major companies like Google/Facebook/some-new-startup will adsorb websites into them. Facebook will offer free hosting to everyone and instead of Facebook pages, there will be a full fledged website, with free unlimited hosting to build/deploy your custom website. Internet will implode into few major sites, each major site will be galaxy of sites. Company names will be unique across the world ( just as usernames are now)

but now, for short term, this change will cause confusion on the point you mention, @tomcarl. Google must have though of this, so there must be a way out.

P.S. InterVerse.com is registered since 1995, and NetVerse.com since 1998!

DNVantage said:

This is valid point. Guess there will be lot more UDRPs

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Exactly why this won't work.

In long run, domain names will lose their importance. Major companies like Google/Facebook/some-new-startup will adsorb websites into them.

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I doubt that though. Any *real* businessman or startup will not keep the hands of their entire company on a Free hosted page or as an extension of a larger, entity. Sure, you will have hobbyists and small blogs that will but they were hardly aftermarket domain purchasers anyway, so no loss.

DNVantage said:

This is valid point. Guess there will be lot more UDRPs

In long run, domain names will lose their importance. Major companies like Google/Facebook/some-new-startup will adsorb websites into them. Facebook will offer free hosting to everyone and instead of Facebook pages, there will be a full fledged website, with free unlimited hosting to build/deploy your custom website. Internet will implode into few major sites, each major site will be galaxy of sites. Company names will be unique across the world ( just as usernames are now)

but now, for short term, this change will cause confusion on the point you mention, @tomcarl. Google must have though of this, so there must be a way out.

P.S. InterVerse.com is registered since 1995, and NetVerse.com since 1998!

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You missed entire point of Internet. It meant to be free and open to everyone. Not closed and restricted to one ecosystem.

Exactly.

I see where they are going here... they are trying to diminish the value of .ANYTHING so that eventually they will give better SERP ranking to those that want a .GOOGLE or whatever they are pushing; and nobody will notice because all of the domains say : "Website Name"

We could all rage against the machine at any time instead of playing their games.

This is much bigger than gTLDs or what extension you use (who cares), this is about hiding the address (regardless of extension) from search results - This is the big picture here people should be concerned about.

tomcarl said:

This is much bigger than gTLDs, hiding the address (regardless from extension) from search results - This is the bigger at hand here.

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.ANYTHING - literally meaning anything (.COM, .NET,.ORG, etc...) not just the new ones.

The majority of websites that are on page 1 search results barely use schema as it is... this isn't something they would roll out, it is developer dependent. They will do everything in their power to manipulate SERP to their liking, however one day there will come a new engine that doesn't play these nonsense games.

All an engine would have to do is scrape the zone file and analyze the results; I'm shocked Google hasn't been replaced already, and that Bing can't seem to figure out how to be better.

IMO, This isn't about "neutralizing" extensions...

AOL tried to do this, companies were buying Keywords directly from AOL, no one remember? They were anticipating company's to advertise "Find us online, AOL Keyword: Cars" - But that was a speciality AOL search that flopped. What's next, you buy/reg the actual "Name" of your site from Google? So you're displayed when those keywords are typed in? In a commercial you'll hear "Google us, Bob's Insurance"

Are we using the Internet or GoogleNet?

tomcarl said:

I doubt that though. Any *real* businessman or startup will not keep the hands of their entire company on a Free hosted page or as an extension of a larger, privately-owned company.

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I see this possible, not in near future, more like almost a decade away. Currently, companies already use Twitter for support, Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest for user engagement. Banks allow transactions using Twitter. Moving full website into Facebook is technically possible. Amazon/Google cloud platforms allow you to host custom sites for few dollars a month. sandstorm.io allows deployment of open source apps for $6 a month. It would be trivial (OK, not too trivial) for Google to offer custom site integration into G+ using their cloud platform and tech similar to sandstorm. Free pages would not be something like we have now, they would be full fledged sites with full control over UI/styling. Your own domain name would forward to the embedded site, that is, if you wanted a domain name.

starizec said:

You missed entire point of Internet. It meant to be free and open to everyone. Not closed and restricted to one ecosystem.

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... "meant to be open" and will remain open. Major CPU provider is Intel but there is AMD and now ARM arch is picking up fast. There was only Windows, now there is Linux. IE was the only major browser, FF gained momentum, then there was Chrome. G will not be the only one, there are others, and then there will be more. InterNet-Verse will have few galaxies.

Why would G even thinking along those lines. History shows, trying to exert too much control will lead to rise of an alternative. History also shows trying to block out competition leads to anti-trust and possible threat of splitting the company. Doubt any huge company will intentionally try this now. Anyway, Internet is too valuable a resource for it to be controlled by any one company. other companies won't let it happen. More than just the companies, there are too many "countries" interested in it openness.

The current change, is more about how things will evolve rather than an attempt to lock in. Not showing domain name is about trying to simplify and use the small screen devices more efficiently, and my take on what it will possibly lead to, for domain names.

Wondering if everyone (including me) is reading too much in a small change!

edit: nvm

tomcarl said:

This is much bigger than gTLDs or what extension you use (who cares), this is about hiding the address (regardless of extension) from search results - This is the big picture here people should be concerned about.

Click to expand...

See my post earlier and try a few mobile searches.The default is NOT to hide it, URLs are just being formatted like breadcrumbs on mobile instead of with slashes.

Again, this is a presentation change, not a rankings issue.

Government sites still have .gov - apparently they understand the importance of people knowing what site it is they are actually clicking on.

Exactly Tom, the most important thing about a domain name is FREEDOM, free to go your own way and people will not be giving that up to be apart of a walled garden. Facebook and Twitter may not be around in 10 years, go talk to Excite, Exodus,AltaVista,GOTO,Friendster,MySpace.

The goal is to have autonomy, that your online experience starts with your website, that is your wheel,and Facebook, Twitter, You Tube are spokes in your wheel.

Update: It's not just mobile, they've implemented it on Computer search too but in 'News' category for now.

And it is by default, just not every site (possibly because of parsing/tech issues) is being displayed in this way, yet.

Ironic how people have been speculating for the past few years how the new gTLDs will have an effect on the value of domains and we'll all have to see how things play out in the next 10 years and here comes G turning everything upside down from one day to the next more than the gTLD launch ever could yet this thread has so few posts.

I've been a lurker here

In the interest of the greater public, hope this does not open a Pandora's box.

Trained Desktop users know how to hover over the hyperlink to see the actual domain name at the bottom of their browser, so more of a pain in the butt for them than anything. As rightly put by some of the folks here, for those who are not that familiar, or are too distracted, then just clicking on the first few or more searches in whatever they are looking for, might potentially open up to some scam websites which is morphing itself as some other trusted website and pushes malware. This might be true for the lesser know but widely visited websites, where the phishing can potentially happen.

I wonder how, even a sophisticated smartphone user can avoid clicking on something which looks familiar as the option of hovering around an URL is not available in TOUCH screen?

Domaining will always be in a state of getting harder to do. When one accepts that, then they expect things like this and are not surprised.

Seeing 'dot' Com all the time (and no spaces) is not pretty to those 'look' designers and feels unnecessary to those working on the 'user experience' part. Google feels they can filter out the bad


Its more of the never ending push of: your power/money/fame OR sit all day webmastering/social media your site > than domain name

I'd be just as upset even if I didn't invest in domains and was strictly a developer/user.

As a user: Not seeing an actual address is far from enhancing my experience. They have just made my browsing less secure. People will get mislead/scammed/hacked because of this, it's inevitable.

As a developer: Whoa, UDRPs/Complaints here we go! What is to stop anyone from registering the same keywords on another extension and giving their site the same title as any other site. Is Google going to handle disputes? As if trademark holders didn't have a hard time enough. And people thought typo-domains were an issue with traffic leaks.

As a domainer: obvious reasons, although I'm beginning to think this there's a possibility this can actually increase the value of .COM because I think end users who paid to acquire their name or begin to see clone sites floating around will start including their domain as the actual site name. And It's going to be the only way to verify and legitimize yourself in the search results. I know I'm rebranding all of my indexed sites to include the full domain name.

Let's wait and see.