Google updates snippets of seek results for queries with charges

Google has updated the way search results are clipped in Google Search for queries that contain quotation marks. Now Google will show where that exact phrase appears on the page in the search results snippet in Google Search, the company announced.

What does that mean. Google explained that if you searched for things like [“google search”]the snippet will show where this exact phrase appears:

Before. Google previously said that Google Search did not always display a cited search term in a snippet of Google Search results “because sometimes the cited material appears in areas of the document that are not suitable for generating useful snippets,” Google said. “For example, a word or phrase might appear in a menu item on a page where you would navigate to different sections of the website. Creating a thumbnail around such sections may not provide an easy-to-read description,” Google added.

Why the change. Google said they made this change based on feedback from searchers, Google wrote: “We’ve heard feedback that people doing cited searches appreciate seeing where the quoted material appears on the page and not in the general description of the page. Our improvements are designed to help solve this problem.”

More tips. Google then gave searchers additional tips about how quotes work in Google Search and how it can affect your search results. Check out their blog post here.

Why do we care? Google has confirmed with Search Engine Land that this is not a ranking change, but a user interface change to how Google Search will display certain searches, searches that use quotation marks. This may affect your CTR from Google search results, but will not affect your ranking for these types of queries.

About the author

Barry Schwartz, a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He is the owner RustyBrick, an online consulting firm based in New York. It also runs Round table of search engines, a popular search blog on highly advanced SEM topics. Barry can be tracked on Twitter here.