Another sign that rankings are less important these days?

… or is this reading into it a bit much? I don’t know, you tell me.

We’re all familiar with the new Google layout by now… but I noticed another subtle difference the other day. Google no longer includes the “Showing results X of XXX” on their SERPs. Take a look at the below…

Here’s a screenshot of Google’s old results page for the query [online copywriting]:

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See the “Results 1 – 10″ part? Now look at the new SERPs for the same query:

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Google no longer makes it explicit that they are showing 10 results on their first page. The same goes for the following pages… compare the second page on the old Google for [online copywriting]:

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… and the new:

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The phrasing has changed from “Results 11 – 20″ to “Page 2″.

What does this all mean? Possibly nothing. Possibly, it’s Google’s way of devaluing the “prize” of a top 10 ranking. Or, possibly, it’s a way of Google for preparing us for a time when they completely blow the whole “10 results to a page” thing out the water. We’re already there with the blended results… possibly they changed the wording to simply reflect that fact more accurately?

Who knows? But I thought it was interesting