Top Ten No More - You've Now Got To Be Top Seven

Google is getting more interesting by the day and are now encouraging people to buy links to get listed top of the first page - but for a different reason.

Just doing some client ranking analysis on their very new site, I noticed that you now have to be top 7 to be on the front page and not top ten.

The cause of this assertion is that it appears that more and more space is being taken up with local search results.

Just take a look for the search "mortgages the wirral". You get even more space for the local results and only 7 listings for natural results. I'm sure this has changed recently. Wasn't the local box smaller above 10 natural listings???



But then you choose another location, say "mortgages ellesmere port" you get the full 10 listings. I'd be interested to see what the defining factor of inserting the local listings are.

I wonder what other pressures will the professional SEO'ers find themselves under next year? Would we have to buy links to get our clients featured in the local listings?

For my client to be featured in the local listings for mortgage searches they'll have to register with Unbiased.co.uk for:

Annual £249 + VAT (to cover 12 months from payment)
Monthly £24 + VAT (payable each month for 12 months)

If you look at other sites that have their information crawled, I'm sure you have to pay to be included in those(?) Is Google now encouraging people to buy links?

Also, with link building in the mortgage industry being so damn competitive I've had to try and find other ways. I've created a Squidoo lense about "Mortgages in Ellesmere Port" and also a Flickr set. I've now started a wet paint page on them too!