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Thursday, June 26, 2014

2 New Google Mobile Search Tests: Larger Titles & Info Cards

Google has made some changes to how they are displaying mobile search results, and if you're currently ranking number one for your queries and have sitelinks, your click-through rate (CTR) from mobile devices on those searches might get significantly higher.
Larger Titles for Websites with Sitelinks
The first mobile search test reported by Google Operating System is one that will make those webmasters with many sitelinks quite happy.
When the top search result features a site that has multiple sitelinks, Google is increasing the size of the font for that title. This means that on many mobile phones, users will only see that first result on their screen, pushing all other results further down (e.g., Google News) so they are barely visible on the screen:


The title does get truncated significantly more than it would with the regular search results without the title being enlarged. However, the larger title is definitely eye-catching and should significantly increase CTR, so long as the truncation isn't causing the result to seem like a poor match to the searcher.
This new change seems to affect multiple search queries and both Android and iOS devices, including both Google Chrome and Safari.
Website Info Cards
Google is also testing site info cards within mobile search results. While the site info cards are fairly common in desktop searches, they are new to mobile.

These new mobile info cards also give the first search results significant real estate space on a mobile device, including the entire screen on mobile phones. If the listing has sitelinks, they are shown beneath the info card.

The test with these site info cards is currently only being shown to those who are not signed into a Google account, so make sure you're logged out before testing it with your own search queries.

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