Johan Ng

When I am browsing on one of the biggest forum for webmaster I read an article to help us understand how’s Google refine results work and stop losing traffic.

If you have a good ranking for a particular keyword in Google and you’ve noticed a dip in traffic, I suggest you check out the SERP manually and stop using tools to do so.

If your major keywords have “Refine Results” it will drastically drop the number of clickthroughs for that particular placement you have.

The answer, of course, is understanding how the “more:” operator works and changing your optimization strategies. These changes in strategies are not what you expect; it’s not about links, it’s not about on page content, it’s not about old school search engine optimization anymore.

One might expect that a query for “widget screenshots” would be the same as “widget more:screenshots.” It’s not. Not by a long shot. Try it out and see for yourself. Some example SERPs where it’s visible: a medication example, a travel result, and an auto result. Click on one of the “refined” queries, and compare that to the SERP without the “more:” operator. Confused?

It’s about social bookmarking, it’s about the web 2.0 interactivity hype, and it’s about Google moving away from their traditional algorithm. If you haven’t figured it out earlier, it’s all coming from the Google Coop.

Unfortunately it’s obviously open to a lot of abuse. Webmasters could create multiple accounts, make them look natural, cover their tracks (different emails, different IP addresses), and boost their own sites.

A less abusive strategy, but one that still will work, is to go the Digg route: beg users for tagging on your page. It will of course add more clutter to your page. Whether or not that’s worth it to you is really a matter of opinion; but you should realize that right now if you’re in one of the affected categories, you need to be aware of the refined results, and you need to learn how to optimize from them. If you don’t, you’ll be losing traffic.

Currently it applies to the following categories: Health, Destination Guides, Autos, Computers & Video Games, Photography & Video Equipment, and Stereo & Home Theater. If Google deems it successful, expect it to expand in the future to other categories.

Official information on the Google Coop is available, but don’t expect Google to reveal all of the secrets behind how things work. Some things have changed, but some things haven’t: as always, the best way to optimize anything is to test, test, and test some more. See what works, what doesn’t, and start applying it to your sites.