Sometimes we ask questions to Google and typing them into the search box. Instead of using the search phrase “hong kong restaurant” other people use “where can i find a good restaurant in hong kong”? The thought is the same but the difference is that the second search query is longer than the first one.
Results may be similar but as we try these phrases on, Google takes a not-so-new spin on displaying search results.
A shorter search query such as “hong kong restaurant” displays a shorter snippet. A snippet is the piece of text that appears below the linked text that appears within search results.
But look on a similar yet longer search query “hong kong restaurant with lobster menu in wan chai” yields a longer search result.
See the difference?
Google explains the rationale behind the longer snippets:
When you enter a longer query, with more than three words, regular-length snippets may not give you enough information and context. In these situations, we now increase the number of lines in the snippet to provide more information and show more of the words you typed in the context of the page. Below are a couple of examples.
It makes sense for Google to display longer snippets for longer search terms (more than three words). That’s because these terms are probably more specific and Google becomes more confident in displaying more details of ranking pages, knowing that the page could hold information sought by the search engine user.
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