The last few days, I've seen this format coming and going on Google results, so finally I decided to take a screenshot. When the top listing (I've only seen it for the #1 listing so far) has the potential for more than one listing, instead of 2 listings (with the 2nd one being indented), it gets one listing, then 4 "sub-listings". Personally, I really like the format, and hope Google goes live with it across the board.
I've seen it too. But I've seen a few listings get some pretty weird 2-4th place listings underneath it. I think its still pretty much in alpha, as it crops up about 2-3% of the time for me.
Looks sweet at first glance, then I begin to wonder how this really will enhance the experience for searchers.
Right now I see it happening for most major companies (and some small ones too). Funny thing is it does it with a search of yahoo and msn, but not google. heh Well, it gives the users more options to deep-link locations (rather than just one) and also takes out the 2nd listing for the company, so the site that was #11 (2nd page of results) is now #10. So they also get one more site to pick from on the first page of results.
It's a good question... I couldn't figure it out. I know it's *not* based on the sites normal relevancy ranking for the query (if you turn filtering off, the ones at the top of the normal results are not necessarily the ones that show).
Looks like a great way to help people find specific things on your site but I Google is such a small percentage of my overall traffic on my sites I couldnt care either way.
Hmmmm... the first link for vBulletin's extra links is: http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&si=0&oi=smap&q=http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/ It has oi=smap in the URL, so now I'm wondering if Google is taking the priority value (set per URL) from Google Sitemaps, and using that to make the determination of what gets displayed? If so, that's a good enough reason for me to actually use Google Sitemaps.
Well it's not really that great is it, as surfers will focus more of their time scowering the results from 1 entry in the top 10. Don't we want them to keep scanning down until they hit our sites? Sure it's brilliant if you're #1 'cos you're going to get more of the users time - and if they decide the first place isn't that relevant, even after looking at the sub-sections and what-not, they will move on.... I certainly aren't getting a boner of this idea... looks dire for those who aren't at number #1 !
I have done a little research and it seams that they are done algoritmical. www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3528611 www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/30829.htm www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/30955.htm
Yeah I noticed it yesterday. Just tried to search "link popularity" and got something like that http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-23,GGLD:en&q=link+popularity&spell=1
It isn't based on sitemaps for sure. Our site doesn't have a sitemap, but the custom links are still shown. It looks like the nav links are shown based on their frequency on site's pages.