Sounds like an experiment - at least I'm not seeing it here. Google is always testing ideas on the SERPs, but a lot of them are not so easy to notice. This sounds like quite a remarkable idea, something cooked up by their snippet team.

I've been using it all day today on the L detail setting, and I really like it. It shows a meta description and on-page content, so it's much easier to distinguish between good pages with real info as opposed to keyword list spam or stub pages with just a deceptively nice meta description.

Techcrunch has some coverage on the SML test now [techcrunch.com], including a screenshot.

[edited by: tedster at 1:32 am (utc) on Oct. 1, 2008]

What DC? I've checked a dozen or so DCs and can't find it. Maybe it's a user-based thing?

Couldn't this also be a bad thing as visitors may not need to come to the site as they already have the info they require?...

Sounds great for a user, but a bit scary to the info based sites

Shades of SearchMe here?

Looking at the screen shot, it actually looks pretty good. There is no milage for Google to screw adsense publishers by scraping their pages.

noticed this S,M,L test on www.google.com.au a couple of days back. But it wasn't visible on google.com at the time.

seems the test has been stopped or shifted to a different DC(as of 10/1/2008), as not visible anymore.

Google has had a SS (Super Small) version for a long time where you get just the Title with no meta or on-page text, but most people don't know about it.

Customization is something I've asked for and expected for a long time, so I'm glad Google is finally listening. They should have started this years ago.

p/g

...Couldn't this also be a bad thing as visitors may not need to come to the site as they already have the info they require?...

Exactly - when does a snippet become content scraping ?

Yes yes I know google is a scraper but when they deliver enough information to answer a query without visiting a site then we loose - and of course in the long run so does google as we will no longer create free content for them.

Update: I'm still seeing this. I also have noticed that the ranking order changes when I switch from M (default) to L (large) or S (small). For the keywords I tested, my home page ranks the best with the L option.

iridiax, i can't see how Google can explain changing rankings based on a user's SERP display settings. It just doesn't make sense.

anyone else seeing the rankings change with this test?