Double listings at Google By David Leonhardt Have you ever searched for something on Google and noticed that a website has a double listing – a main listing and a second listing indented – and wondered "Why?" And then wondered, "How?"
Google lists up to two pages from a domain for any given search. Most likely, you already have two pages listed for your major search terms. Your pages might be listed at #14 and #456, in which case they don't show up together.
When two pages from
same domain show up on
same SERP (search engine results page), Google groups them together. If your two pages are listed at #11 and #18, they will be grouped on
second SERP...assuming Google's default of 10 results per page.
However, you can change your default number of results in
advanced search preferences: http://www.google.com/advanced_search .
Or you can make a one-time change by simply adding "num=17&" or "num=7&" (without quotation marks) after "search?" in
SERP URL. Here is an example of how a 9-result page URL looks: http://www.google.com/search?num=9&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=SEO+tips&btnG=Search&meta=
One of my client sites ( http://www.dotcom-monitor.com ) delivers web site and network monitoring. As I write, it is ranked #3 at Google for "web site monitoring". One page ( http://www.dotcom-monitor.com/web-site-monitoring.asp ) specifically about web site monitoring is ranked #4 for that term.
Actually, using
technique above, I learn that
second page is really ranked #7. How? I set num=7& and see a double listing. I set num=6& and
double listing goes away, bumped to
second page.
Why does your competition merit a double listing at
top of Google's rankings and you don't?
Google wants to deliver results that are important and relevant. In a search for "apples", your site on baking might have a very relevant page and it might even be an important page (and hopefully a tasty one, too!). But your overall site is not as relevant to apples as some others. In a search for "baking", however, you probably have dozens of highly relevant pages, giving Google lots to choose from.
I should note in
example above that most of my client's site is about web site monitoring, so it makes sense that two or more pages would rank very highly for such a term (except that Google will list only
top two).
Google gives my own happiness site (http://www.thehappyguy.com ) a double listing for "happiness". The second listing is my free "daily happiness" ezine ( http://www.thehappyguy.com/daily-happiness-free-ezine.htm ). Google could have chosen any of a few dozen pages that are highly relevant to a search for "happiness", but it chose
two that other webmasters link to most often.