Google’s incessant tinkering with its search engine can result in real benefits for users, but more often than not, it will lead to headaches for webmasters who have to cope with the constant changes and what they mean for SEO.
The latest alteration to occur has impacted the way that travel-related searches appear on mobile devices, with experts arguing that the highest-ranking organic results are now harder for users to actually identify.
What will this mean for sites that sell travel packages, and are there ways to overcome the SEO implications of this reshuffle?
Wrangling Travel Results
The queries that are impacted by this change relate to specific travel destinations, meaning that someone searching for “places to visit in America” from a smartphone will now be presented with two primary options along with the cost of a flight and accommodation sourced from Google’s own retail platforms.
Hitting the “more destinations” button directly below this will indeed provide additional options to searchers, but the only way to access the organic results for this query would be to return to the previous page or input the search again.
This could cause problems for businesses that have invested ub Belfast SEO by companies like https://www.rycomarketing.co.uk/digital-marketing-belfast/seo-belfast/ because ultimately it could render their efforts to reach the top of the organic rankings for particular destinations a waste of time.
Taking Stock
On the surface, this new travel search experience for mobile devices sounds like it could have a disastrous impact on the industry, all while channeling more users through Google’s own platforms to find out about destinations, book flights and look up accommodation.
However, it is also worth remembering that Google carries out regular experiments like this and has actively asserted that in this instance the feature is not being rolled out universally to all users, but rather on a trial basis. There is no guarantee that it will be embraced globally, nor that it will remain in its current form for good.
Reshaping the SERPs for mobile users is tough because there is so little room onscreen for results to appear. For the time being, it is still a good idea for all sites to hone their design and SEO strategies in order to achieve a higher organic rank.
