We published a blog post on the ionSearch conference blog about Google’s most recent significant algorithm shift, the Google Venice Update. The Venice Update places more weight on local results in organic listings for both logged in and logged out users. You can read all about it here and get involved in the LinkedIn discussion here.

However 2011 saw a big shift in consumer buying trends and mobile users began using mobile internet to place bets and make purchases in their palms. More interesting still; mid last year in the US alone, 32% of users were spending over $100 in a single transaction and these figures are growing rapidly. 2011 saw sales of Smart phones considerably overtake those of PCs, 87.2% and 5.5% comparatively.

The numbers speak for themselves. For those who missed the band wagon the first time round, businesses need to start harnessing the power of mobile web and what better time to start than…oh a few weeks into a New Year.

2012 is exciting as 1998, when Lycos and Ask Jeeves were serious search contenders and nobody was quite sure where the market was heading; the same stands for mobile and those that invest now, will reap the benefits in the coming years.

A Saturday evening spent watching mid 90s reruns of Who Wants to Be Millionaire may seems an unlikely starting point for a blog post, but here goes. I began to notice that the questions seemed quite easy. I thought perhaps I was just having a good run, though several episodes later I had realised that actually the questions are easier than the relative ones you may get at the same point in the game today. I remember in particular one question was ‘How many pyramids are in Giza, Egypt?’ Now this was for the £250,000 and without Googling I can be pretty assured in saying it is three, and excuse me for making sweeping presumptions but I imagine you could, too.

Then I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the internet, or more specifically, access to a nigh-on infinite amount of information has resulted in people with a stronger knowledge base. Not more intelligent, per se, but simply a population who know more facts.

I am sure many of you were pleasantly surprised last week when you typed in a clients brand name into Google and were greeted with it’s newest introduction…jumbo site links!

These links are exciting as they take up much of the first page property so are excellent for click-thru rates and online brand reputation. However despite this, I don’t like them; for four principal reasons.

1) This is incredibly frustrating for other companies wanting to rank for certain brand terms. Slightly controversial, I know. It seems intuitive of course that brands should have the majority of the online footfall for their own brand name, and this is certainly what Google is thinking. But what if your brand name is generic? Take, Boots for example. This brand overtakes the majority of the first page when searching for this term, but what if genuinely you were looking for a pair of boots? The same applies to other brands such as Comet and Amazon. Or (perhaps more realistically) you are searching for ‘low cost holidays’ you will be greeted with this:

Excellent for this brand, of course, however slightly more frustrating if you are another holiday provider looking to rank for this high volume and lucrative search term. It seems as though jumbo site links are not only potentially annoying for the everyday user but also to those SEOers and businesses trying to rank for certain terms.

2) On the flip side, it seems as though Google is trying it’s best to combat this problem and many brand terms for which searches may not directly relate to that brand do not have the jumbo site links. Mars, for example or Coke and Dreams, the leading bed retailer, brings quite a different listing.

So problem number 2 is essentially that there is little consistency as to how Google determines what is a ‘brand’ and what is not, meaning that certain sites are missing out.

3) It may be the case that the highest converting or most relevant pages are not shown. You can demote certain pages from being listed however this is still in it’s infancy and sitelinks are not yet fully customisable. High profile blogs too, benefit from jumbo site links (see below) so it would certainly be interesting to find out which metrics Google uses to decide which posts to display.

4) Finally, jumbo site links allow users to skip past the homepage, which could ultimately have a damming impact on advertising revenue.

I have not managed to find much debate on this new introduction as of yet so all comments, disagreements and thoughts are welcomed!