A WebmasterWorld thread noticed that when Google returns sitelinks for a search query, Google will then follow with six additional search listings – making for a total of seven search results.

There have been times when Google would show less or more search results, but never this consist. I.e. it happened before with bugs. But now, if you search for something and Sitelinks show up, it seems like in every case, Google will show a total of seven results, as opposed to ten results.

Here is a screen shot of a search for [ted drewes]:

Danny went a lot deeper into this change at Search Engine Land – the question is, does this help diversity? SEOmoz also did a deeper look at this so-called search shrinkage.

Google sent a comment to Search Engine Land that reads:

Maybe that is why so many people saw ranking fluctuations around August 16th?

Yes, this seems to be mostly about navigational queries but is this better for the searcher?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.