While doing some routine searches on Google today, I noticed a small star appears at the side of each search result item. Popular blogs haven’t got their hands on this and I have no idea whether this is an experimental or a permanent feature.
One thing is for sure though. Google has been introducing a lot of additional features to its search engines to introduce personalization into their search results. Google Starred Results will definitely bring the level of personalization in search to another level.
(Click on image to enlarge screenshot.)
The basic idea is, searchers can now ‘star’ items that appear in search results and when they conduct the search again, all the starred results will appear on top of all other search result items.
What does this mean for search engine optimization efforts? Why should you pay attention to this?
Search Results Curation – More Than Just Content
I know, great content, great content and great content… You hear this all over the Internet. Now, with starred results, not only that your content should be great, it must also be relevant to the audience that you are targeting.
A search term may bring up multiple results with roughly the same idea behind their content. However, other elements such as the design, content presentation and the overall experience at a page will now play a role in influencing a user whether to ‘star’ that particular page in the search results.
As a marketer, you need to make sure your content explains ideas in the context of your target audience and that they are presented in a way that your target audience favors.
Higher Return Visits from Google
If you look at your analytics software installed to your blog or website right now, a large percentage of traffic from Google or other search engines are new visitors, which means that these visitors never visited your site before.
With the introduction of Starred Results, useful and relevant content will appear on top of search results and start to receive a higher percentage of return visits from Google. This is simply because users, if given the choice, do not want to spend time going through tons of search results to find what they need.
Content or Search Engine Optimization?
The explanation above may bring along a headache for marketers and small business owners who are just dipping their feet into search engine optimization (SEO). Since the relevance of content is becoming important, should we be discarding our focus on SEO?
Well, SEO and content creation goes hand-in-hand. Without well-crafted and relevant content, users will leave your page even though you rank first on search engines. Also, useful content get links from other sites and this definitely helps in SEO.
On the other hand, great content without proper SEO elements will be left deep in the search results. If a page is ranked in the 100th page for a search term, the chances for it to be discovered is nil and you can forget about getting the page some stars on Google.
Prediction: Curation by Searchers Gain Momentum
Google Starred Results seems to me like a stripped down version of Google SearchWiki, which was introduced in early 2008. Instead of a simple ‘star’, users were given the opportunity to vote up/down for search result items and even comment on them. Of course, ‘starring’ result items is definitely more intuitive and require lesser efforts from the user side.
Nevertheless, the introduction of Starred Results shows the seriousness of Google in giving its search engine users the power to personalize search results. Their starring (or perhaps, voting) activity will definitely be taken into account in the ranking algorithm one day.
Your Thoughts on Google Starred Results
How do you think the search engine optimization arena will change as a result of Google’s continuous push towards personalized results? Also, how will your online marketing strategy align itself with these changes?
Leave a comment in the comments section below with your thoughts.
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Thanks for the info bro! I never knew of these before
Very helpful info. Thank you, Wayne!
No problem, Sherry. Glad that you find the blog post to be useful.
I hadn't heard of Google stars, so I just went off to G and typed in one of my main keywords to check it out. There didn't appear to be any star system there – maybe it's only operating in the US??? I did, however, find that I am currently in #1 spot for that keyword – wooo hoooo!!!!!
Hey Lynnette, thank you for the comment. Yeah, perhaps the new feature is
only available on Google US for now. I'm glad to hear that you are ranking
for the #1 spot of your keyword.
I did a search today, checking rankings of a client, as I always do, and I noticed a “starred” result, right under the sponsored result but right above the organic results. I had read about the starred results but must not have gotten the idea behind it. Now I know and I'm not too happy. Now, when a user is logged in, it's going to look like my client has a #3 position instead of #2. Can't wait to get yelled at for this. I'm really not sure how we are going to tackle this, other that taking some of your advice. I guess we will have to redesign and convince the client to maybe give away some stuff for free or something, just to keep users interested in the site. Hmmmmmm.
Thanks for the information,i was searching on Google just now and notice the yellow star. I try search it on Google and found your site.
only just noticed after a google search tonight and saw little stars next to some websites and wondered what they meant. now I know and am delighted that my website has one- yippee!
I am always doing random websearches to see how our website is getting on – it is quite new- and now on page 6 of google search for Cottage in Swaledale so not bad and we must be doing something right as we have a google gold star- so chuffed! Check it out
http://www.stayinswaledale.co.uk
Conventional SEO strategies may slowly fade out as the web becomes more social and relevant to web users. I don't think your client will be mad at you just because of the introduction of starred results. Visitors that aren't interested in the products or services that your client is offering will not become customers of theirs anyway even if they rank high up for search terms that they are targeting.
Let me know how it goes and thanks for the comment. All the best!
Thanks for the comment, Jason. Hope the information above helped you out in one way or another.
Great! Always a pleasure to help someone like yourself out. Thanks for the comment.
Hmm, what do you mean by Google Gold Star? Is there such a thing to acquire better search rankings? Mind to elaborate further? Thanks.
This is my first opportunity to visit this website. I found some interesting things and I will apply to the development of my blog. thanks for sharing useful information.
Next time you do a websearch, you will notice stars by the address- mostly they are see through- but occasionally they are gold- this means that the site contains all the information google thinks that you are searching for. There are many ways to help make it happen- search engine optimization is very time consuming but there are some things you can try to make your website work better. Take a look at our holiday cottage website http://www.stayinswaledale.co.uk and see the gold star. Get in touch via the website if you want more information on websites. Hope that helps!
Thank you, Wayne!
I was just surprised by this new feature because I, myself, own a simple health website (http://www.redmushrooms-healthmanna.com) that hardly gets 50 new visitors a day in 2 years. Now I was surprised it has gone up to an average of 105 per day (hope it goes up more). When I tried searching for my site's keywords, that's when I noticed the “Star” on my website for keywords like; DXN, GANOTHERAPY,
HEALTHY COFFEE 3IN1, LIM SIOW JIN, DXN HEALTH PRODUCTS, RED MUSHROOMS, HEALTH MANNA, GANOZHI, JOIN DXN, etc.
It feels so good that google is so kind to my website. Hope it'll always be like that forever. Now, I got to check my email inbox frequently as lots of emails are coming in inquiring about my site. My google adsense too is accelerating! I think my site's hosting company has taugh me the secret of optimization technique that follows the alogorithm of search engines.
I never thought that my home-made website will “over-take” the other professional websites on the web.
Hi Wayne
I am right with you, I have a web site for gluten free dog treats and noticed a star under my search for gluten free dog treats. It does feel good that google is seeing the good in some of the upcoming trend in business.
The stars simply show that these are search terms that you have searched on yourself and nothing to do with Google liking your website.
Wow, your site is ranking high for a lot of terms there. I think you're
doing something right on the SEO side of things instead of having the stars
beside your website in the search results. Anyway, all the best with your
red mushrooms site, Joseph.
I have never even seen these before. Very interesting though.
I searched for a term I was trying to rank for and realized I had a stared result on the first page. I had no clue what it was but it was nice to see it above the number one result. Thanks for the explanation.
It's a common situation in the news business where pickups and placements are the goal, but at the same time, they can create visibility issues due to duplication. In the end, if it serves the audience you're trying to reach, there's a way to win win win for you, search engines and target market.
Thanks for taking the time funnily enough I have 3 press releases to distribute and I was worried about duplicate content of our site's news and duplicate content in other press release and article sites.
There's certainly a learning curve. The good news is, that most social communities are VERY opinionated about such things and can provide corrective feedback pretty quickly.
Hi Wayne
Hopefully this is a good thing for us, we are struggling with SEO for our competitive key phrases ie “personalised gifts” as big companies are spending $$$$$ for lucrative keywords but they offer nothing new, whereas our company offer a vaster range with more engraving options so a much better choice for the customer…. the thing is to find our company for this term you need to jump to page 10 of Google! No idea why it's on page 10 as it was on page 2 for a few weeks and is page 2 on Bing!
http://www.keepitpersonal.co.uk
Hey Andy, not into personalized gifts myself but if you and your customers
believe that what you are offering is truly unique among your competitors,
you should get their testimonials and of course, their help to make your
site and web presence more prominent through business review sites or social
media avenues. All these will contribute to better search rankings as
visitors discover your business and as the web gets social.
If I understand your post correctly then only the person who starred a search result will see the stars? or will everyone who searches for that term see them? I see starred results at the top of my google page here in the US but since they are sights I do SEO on… I thought perhaps they just came up because I go to those sights often.
Hi Wayne,
I am a bit confused about the google starred results, and seek some clarification.
As per my understanding based on your article, a user is supposed to set keywords as starred.
I notice that my site is starred for a few keywords.
I have not set these keywords as starred.
So, who sets these keywords as starred? Is it done by google based on relevance.
AF
Yes – I am also confused. Commenters are saying that they see gold stars beside their site in relation to certain keywords and that they are happy Google “likes” their site. But what makes them be starred? Is it, as you say, the searcher starring his own site? Is it Google starring the site for the searcher? I am not at all clear on who stars a site and what a starred site means? And is the starred site only visible to certain searchers or will all searchers see the same starred site? I would really like a more clear explanation. Thanks for any clarification you can give on this! Deja :0) http://www.healthyhomecleaning.com
Google will automatically star sites that you bookmarked in your browser or
on other Google services such as Bookmark Sync using Google Chrome. Starred
Results will only be seen by you, not the public.
It is very likely that you have the starred sites in your bookmarks or you
might have the sites added to certain Google services, which explains why
they are starred in the Google results.
This is real interesting. I have never heard of this. I like the stars for the fact that it is more personalized. I think its a good thing that Google is doing. They are always improving.
Thank you for the comment. Yup, they are definitely always improving and work on suggestions based on our feedback as well as, um, our usage.
Thank you for the comment. Yup, they are definitely always improving and
work on suggestions based on our feedback as well as, um, our usage.
I was so glad to find this blog. I routinely do searches for some of my products to see how they show up and last night there was a gold (more yellow than gold) star by my website. I was doing a search for “Ganz Cross Measuring Spoons” and my site http://www.heartsdesiregifts.biz came up first and with the yellow gold star. So I googled “what does the google starred results mean” and found this blog. Thank you! Just a side note, when I searched again a few minutes ago, the star was gone so I think Google is beta testing it.
Glad that you find my article useful, Sheri. Yeah, Google might still be
beta testing it but I do see this staying as a permanent feature. Definitely
a place to keep monitoring for new search features.
Nice to see. I test search specific keywords several times aday and notice that several are showing as “starred results” which has lead to higher hit counts and turnovers which is indeed good.
Ronnie
http://www.anon-resources.at.tc
This feature has been around for over a year.
Wayne, Google created the stars to allow you to identify results in which you are interested for when you return and do the same or similar search. This only works when you are logged into your personal account.
Grretings Wayne,
I am Chaitanya & own a website named http://www.granthdwar.com; it's all about Marathi books buying & selling. Still the site is not functional; we have just uploaded the image (design) for now two days back.
We do not have huge competition but from past 10 days I am submitting my site with keyword list to various social book marking sites like digger, reddit, yahoo, google & many more and suddenly my site appeared on 1st rank as STARRED RESULTS FOR “Keyword” just below the adword listing on google. I am wondering & afraid if it is illegal to submit the site to many directories before it is functional. This is not really intended but I know something about black hat SEO. Please do let me know if I am going wrong.
Please guide me.
I think Google might be testing this feature on and off on random users or
perhaps, it was an experimental feature under Google Labs but it's official
release was in March 2010 (
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/stars-ma…).
True. But don't you think that in the long run, Google might use what people have starred as a measurement to rank a site in the search engines simply because sites or pages with the most stars can be said to be more relevant to users?
Thank you for leaving a comment, Chaitanya. First of all, I would like to highlight that you are seeing your site ranked first in the search results under Starred Results is because you might have bookmarked the site within your browser or using many of the Google services out there such as Google Bookmarks, Google Webmaster Tools, etc.
As for the question on whether one should focus on building the website and making it functional prior to marketing it for search engines, I would say that it will be better for you if you focus on making your site functional first rather than focusing on link building now. Search engines do pay attention to quality of content that are on your site and this should be the primary reason why you should focus on making your site functional first.
Also, another thing that I would like to point out is the fact that submitting all your site pages or URLs to social bookmarking sites isn't a good SEO strategy. First of all, social bookmarking sites don't carry much SEO juice nowadays. They play a better role at sending tons of traffic to quality content rather than link juice. Hope you'll get my point here.
Feel free to ask more questions if you have any.
Thanks for the overview of Google's new “starred” search results. At the present time, I'm scratching my head to see how it would impact SEO. How can you make an impact on what anyone stars? But if stars are taken into the ranking algorithms, can it be long before every site asks or induces uses to star it on Google?
Dear Wayne, I really appreciate your response. Thank you very much for your kind help, I am still working on the website to make it up & live & will follow the instructions you have mentioned for SEO.
God bless you.
I like google's new implementations. It means that better sites regardless of backlinks rise to the top.
Oh no! Noticed it today. Seems like Google is filling the front page with everything but the positions that we are gunning for. Rank 1st or go home!
hi guys, these yellow stars are a new feature of google bookmarks, nothing to do with SEO, its based on your bookmarks, you can add & delete whatever you like to them see: https://www.google.com/bookmarks for yours (if you're signed in to a google account)
I have a google star next to my blog but under the key word search
“chautauqua lake real estate” somtimes my blog come up just under sponsored ads but my website is always in position # 3 on the page.
I would think the star result of my blog would help me to the top.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
suck it
Thanks for this info Wayne. Anybody can have Stars now. It looks to be helping my website..
Good Post
We will see how it works out..
i got the first page..starred on my website..
femmespy.com…lets see…how it goes…
Fascinating, a service I like. I just entered a local business to see if they had a website and a blog I manage came up starred. I had not seen that before so Googled through to this explanation. I had mentioned the store in a post I had done. Excellent idea.
I am now experimenting with whether this does have an impact on search results for other users. It is available in Australia and the US (our two markets). I believe the starred result is generated by existing bookmarking tools as well as current activities.
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