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The general layout of a page of search results has been pretty consistent since Google joined the market about a decade ago. At that time, most other search engines realized that Google had the right idea and since then most of them have copied the layout in one way or another.

Despite looking similar, the basic design of search engines has evolved over the years; with small changes and tweaks being added to improve the way that search engines display the user’s results to make for a better experience.

Now Google is introducing another update to enhance the functionality of their search engine in a subtle way. They call it their “breadcrumbs” update.

Google will now replace certain URLs that appear in search results that it deems to be lacking relevant and meaningful content. What they are replacing them with is a hierarchy displaying the location of the page in relation to its parent website’s structure.

Google announced this update late last week in a blog post which explains their reasons for altering their award winning search engine – the main objective, as usual is to make the results page clearer for the end user.

This new update will not be applied to all URL’s featured in the search engine, only those which are lacking context or that are to short or too long to be of use.

When a URL is easy to understand, for example - http://www.thomascole.net/services/webdesign/index.asp - no additional explanation is needed, the update will not be applied and the website will be displayed as normal.

However, when a user searches for a term like "motability" when are displayed Google’s update will be applied to most of the results and will replace the URL with a site hierarchy, beginning with the host and domain of the site and offering users guide to the location and category of the page within the website. This is due to most of the URLs being complex and difficult to interpret.

The Google Blog goes on to say: "By analyzing site breadcrumbs, we've been able to improve the search snippet for a small percentage of search results, and we hope to expand in the future.

"When we design the way results appear on google.com, our goal is to get you to the information you're looking for as quickly as possible. Sometimes that means improving how we represent websites, and other times that means giving you new ways to explore content. We're always happy when we can introduce a feature, like site hierarchies, that does both!"

Thomas Cole Solutions have spent time researching into this new Google update. If you have any queries about this latest development don't hesitate to get in touch, you can drop us a message via the Contact Us Page or call the Techteam on 01254 832815.