Google's Expanded Sitelinks | 12 Pack Sitelinks | Advantages

Google Launches New Expanded Sitelinks

Google has introduced a new sitelinks feature in Google search results which display up to 12 results below the main result for certain queries on search result pages. These appear only for specific queries like the name of the firm or business or the website name . Currently before the expanded sitelinks came on the search results page, Google used to show a few links below the main result for certain searches.

The new site links display upto 12 links below the main result in two columns of 6 each and hence the name "12 Pack". Each site link now includes a title, a short one line description as well as the link. The sitelinks are very similar to the regular results just but their lengths are smaller. In addition to this the maximum number of sitelinks that is displayed for a site has been raised from eight to twelve, and the number shown also varies by query.
According to the posting in the official Google Blog "It turns out that sitelinks are quite useful because they can help predict which sections of the site you want to visit. " Google also states that One-line sitelinks, where sitelinks can appear as a row of links on multiple results, and sitelinks on ads are not affected by this change.

Advantages Of Expanded Sitelinks

Site links will help users point out the various types of content present and help them access it immediately. For example a site discussing Content management systems may have sections on Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal and site links will help the searcher go to the section of his or her choice in one click.
Another advantage of the expanded and improved sitelinks is that they give a brief overview of the information that exists on the site that the searcher wishes to browse. Webmasters can now choose to optimize their descriptions for the sitelinks so that the important words come first since Google will typically display about 30 to 35 characters for each snippet.

Google Farmer Update Rolls Out | Panda Update 2011 | Scraper Sites And Content Farms Hit

Google Farmer Update or Panda Update Rolls Out World wide

On 24th Feb 2011 Google rolled out it's now famous Farmer or Panda Update across US and on 11th April this was extended to all English language Google searches across the world including google.co.in . World over Scraper Sites and Content Farms were badly hit as well as sites which had lots of poor quality content.
Google says that this update impacts 12% of all searches and that it is implemented so that high quality content and sites will move up the Search Engine Results Page and low quality content as well as sites will move down.This change has been done to lower the rankings of Scraper sites and content farms that copy content from other websites and republish on their websites.
It rewards websites that have high quality and unique content which is not present elsewhere.
It has also been found out now that it has also impacted some sites which has internally duplicate content on their websites.
The solution is to either block the indexing of the duplicates or to specify the canonical page by using
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/my-preferred-page.html"/>. Quite a few e-commerce sites have also been impacted as the product descriptions are more or less similar across sites and the content duplication is high.

Google's Views On The Farmer Update

This is what Google had to say on Google Webmaster Central Blog
"Based on our testing, we've found the algorithm is very accurate at detecting site quality. If you believe your site is high-quality and has been impacted by this change, we encourage you to evaluate the different aspects of your site extensively. Google's quality guidelines provide helpful information about how to improve your site. As sites change, our algorithmic rankings will update to reflect that. In addition, you're welcome to post in our Webmaster Help Forums. While we aren't making any manual exceptions, we will consider this feedback as we continue to refine our algorithms."