Organic Search Results Shrink Even Further on Mobile

The Google Carousel
The Google Carousel

Tell me you haven’t seen it yourself? The space on Google and Bing for organic results is shrinking again. Have you looked on your smartphone? Could you even find organic results when the page loades?

The amazing shrinking world of organic search results on mobile

Searchengine Land just wrote about this issue complete with screen shots in this article. They highlighted a travel query with no space left at all for organic search results on a mobile device.

In Google Analytics I am seeing many clients have shrinking organic traffic numbers as both Google and Bing revamp their results displays to show more ads, bigger ads, and on mobile fewer organic results.

On desktops the organic results were already being pushed nearly below the fold by the Google Knowledge Graph and Google Carousel and the six pack of Google Local results. On mobile the space is even more precious. It is not unusual to see only ads when the screen opens, then local results and only with significant scrolling any organic results.

For more information about the changing face of organic results read my blog post about the Google Knowledge Graph and Google Carousel from 2014. The space was shrinking then and now appears to be nearly gone in some new searches.