Google Limits Results From the Same Domain Name

Google has tried to head off spam, again with changes to their search algorithm concerning domain clustering. Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a new video about the change to Google's search results related to the diversity of the results being displayed.

 

Domain Clustering To Change Again; Fewer Results From Same Domain




Less results for the same domain name


Matt said that this change that will make it less likely to see results from the same domain name, if you already have been shown that domain name in previous results three or four times before. Matt explained that once you’ve seen a cluster of about four results from a specific domain name, the subsequent pages are going to be less likely to show you results from that domain name.

Impact on SEO...


The impact on site owners has yet to be seen. It certainly opens up the field to more site owners. It certainly means that traditional SEO will take a step back to diversity of domains. Will this results in site owners creating lots of different website’s to gain more share of voice? Time will tell...

History of Domain Clustering


To explain this in more detail, Cutts explained the history behind domain diversity in the search results. As Matt explained, the goal is to strike the right balance between offering diverse results but at the same time returning the best and most authoritative search results for the query.

The history for domain clustering within Google is as follows:

  • There was no restrictions in the number of results per domain name. This turned out to be a bad thing, as Matt explained.
  • Google added “host clustering,” that prevented more than two results per domain name to be shown in the search results. Webmasters got around this by placing content on subdomains.
  • Google expanded the clustering to show a max of 3 or 4 results per domain, instead.
  • Google then changed this to show more diversity on the first page of results but show less diversity on the secondary pages. So you'd likely not see more than two results from the same domain name on the first page, but you can see several results from the same domain on secondary pages.
  • Launching soon is a change to this to show less from the same domain, even on subsequent pages, after you've already seen about four results from the same domain for that query.

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