Have you ever searched for something on Google, and found that all of the top page results were from the same domain? This is something known is the SEO world as Domain Clustering. Domain clustering can be a real pain if you’re not interested in a particular domain that dominates your search results. After all, this is the year 2013. Do we really need to do all that scrolling, just to get to the information we want?

Domain Clustering

Thanks to Google, we don’t have to do all that much scrolling anymore. Domain clustering used to be a real problem, but Google has already taken steps to prevent it. A while back, Google came up with a “host clustering” update; which limited the potential amount of search results from a domain to two. Unfortunately for Google, webmasters were smart enough to find a loophole. And they began creating content on subdomains to get around it.

As a response, Google changed their algorithm so that the first page of search results will have more diversity than the others. What this essentially means is that you won’t see too many results from the same domain on the first page. But, if you venture into the second or third pages you’re bound to see several results from the same domain. This hasn’t been much an issue, as most Google users don’t even go beyond the first page in search results.

However, the previous updates weren’t enough for Google. With the ever-changing landscape that is Google’s algorithm, the search engine giant will soon be rolling out an update that does even more to disrupt domain clustering. Search results from the same domain will become more restricted, including on subsequent pages. In fact, once you see about four results from one domain in a particular search query, it’s very likely that you won’t see any more. This Google update will put a cap on the number of results from one domain; only this is done for the results of an entire search query.

So for those of you who get annoyed with seeing multiple search results from the same domain, you can rest easy tonight. For most search queries, domain clustering will soon become a thing of the past.