Congratulations! You have been randomly selected to…
Feeling lucky? No, I didn’t win the lottery today <sigh>. I just happened to be randomly selected –along with other users– to take a sneak peek at the new design that Google appears to be currently testing for its results pages.
Check out this SERP screen-shot, showing non-underlined blue links (click on the image to see the whole page at full size):
Here's what the new SERP looks like: notice how the only underlined links are the (organic and paid) result titles, and the related search suggestions at the bottom.
Now compare the above with the regular look of the same SERP, shown in the following screen-shot (which I took after deleting cookies from the google.it domain in my browser):
...and here's your regular good ol' Google SERP: all links are underlined (looks familiar?)
Could you spot all the differences? In the test version of the SERP, all links are blue, but only some are underlined. But that’s not all: the vertical space between the anchor text and the underlying blue line has doubled (from 2 to 4 pixels, in my Firefox).
This results in less visual clutter (especially noticeable with local results, as shown in my screen-shots), and more legible links to organic and sponsored results.
As a side effect, the screen real estate occupied by each result is slightly increased: in the new SERP layout, each organic result takes an additional 4 pixels vertically. This, in turn, makes your standard 10-result page taller by about 3% (2052 vs. 1985 vertical pixels in the above examples), granting even more visibility to the top results (and pushing further down the less lucky followers).
Do you like the new SERP style? Looks good to you? Will it stick?
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. I’ll take care of forwarding them to Google (just kiddin’). 
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I don’t like the “Local business results” feature where Google would display a list of local businesses in Google map, because there is no way to get to the top of that list if you’re not really a local.
I like it, for the very same reason.
Besides, what’s the use of getting to the top of a local business list ? Getting junk traffic?
True, Google has been showing geo-targeted local listings even for some generic queries that do not explicitly include a location name, but I believe Google does a pretty good job of understanding which searches are local and which are not, so I don’t really see your point.
Does this makes a really difference? Well I mean they are just experiment, but I don’t think this would really create some new impact on googler.
@Andrea Moro: The difference is subtle, but very likely to impact both organic and paid results’ CTR if and when the new link style goes live. We’ll see.
Thank you for sharing this test!
Useful post!
@Everflux How can do this impact it? I really don’t be able to figure out. You knowm I know, probably everybody knows that PPC are just on the right top (with some exception on the top) .. can you try to explain a bit your point of view. I’m interested into it.
@Andrea Moro: Because in the new SERP design, the organic and paid result titles are the only links with an underline. Blue underlined links (the most common style for links on the Web) typically yield a higher click-through rate than non-underlined links, so I think there will be some (positive) impact on both organic and sponsored CTRs, measuring which is probably the scope of Google’s test. Mind you, that doesn’t mean the average webmaster/SEO will notice any difference.
I think the biggest impact is on usability: the new SERP looks less cluttered, and more legible (except maybe for people with colour blindness).
I agree with the usability impact. Not completely sure about CTR increase on both paid and natural links, since I believe that web user are now practically used to click on everything is on blue, when they go through google web page.
But it would be an interesting side effect to keep tracked, and it would be interesting look for some other SEO / googler comment as well.
Yeah, it’s not trivial to say how the distribution of clicks will change on a given SERP: maybe local results and sitelinks will see an increased CTR instead, since they also appear more legible in the new design? Who knows?
Probably the effect will vary for different types of queries/SERPs, and only Google will be able to measure it.
I agree with Andrea. While it is more aesthetically pleasing, I personally have a pretty high conversion from my maps listing, so I am hoping it does not have a negative effect on ctr
Is there consideration for accessibility? I would think that removing the underline and letting color be the only distinguishing factor might be cause for concern regarding accessibility.
@Marc
Yes there are some impact on the accessibility. The technical paper contained into the ISO 9241-151, point 9.4 (if I don’t confuse it) declare that links should be easily recognisable by the user by a variety of techniques which includes underlining on the top of the list.
Infact after some days, their test has vanished in the clouds and I don’t see it even in Caffeine.