On Friday Google formally announced that they have made a fairly major change to their ranking algorithm and are now allowing a domain to be listed more than twice in search results if it is deemed to be what the user is searching for.  The fact that Google made an announcement about it suggests it is important.  As with all Google updates it will be a work in progress and subject to finetuning based on how effective and fair it is deemed to be.

The change now means that Google can show a number of different pages from a website in its results if Google thinks that the website is exactly what a user is looking for.  The example given by Google is that of a museum where a user types in 'exhibitions at the American Museum of Natural History'.  Google assesses that the user wants specific information from the AMNH website and so it serves up seven different AMNH pages at the top of results, and then other related websites listed below.

The rationale is fine to a point, but it has potential to overlap on searches that mention a specific website or organisation where the user may want information from other sources and not just the organisation website in question.  An example is adding the word reviews to a museum search, such as 'Te Papa Museum reviews'.  The top three results are the Te Papa blog then the next two are the Te Papa website itself.  It is not till the bottom of the page you can see reviews from external independent sources. 

Another potential issue is where a business has the same name as a generic search.  If a user typed in 'Rarotongan resort information' they could be looking for information on a range of Rarotongan resorts, or specifically for the resort named 'The Rarotongan'.  A quick check shows Google still presenting a range of results for this search, but if the update begins to show multiple results for websites with generic words in their domains then the algorithm change will have overstepped the mark.

As with all major Search Engine updates it will take time to see how it pans out, but this particular change should be monitored closely as it has potential to undermine alot of websites if it goes to far.