Popular search engine ditches right-side ads, but increases ad space at the top of the search page. This leaves you to dig through more ads in your search…
In February, Google decided to remove their right-side ads and instead, populate more ads at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). So what does this mean for you as a Google user? According to Search Engine Watch, when you search anything using the Google platform, there will be four ads that are generated at the top of the page, instead of the previous three. Product listing ads (PLAs) can still be found on the right side of the page, and the paid advertising on the bottom of the SERP will remain as well.
As a Google user, have you noticed the change? We’ve found that many users are not aware of the difference between a paid search result and an organic search result (website results that meet the search criteria that are not paying to be populated on the SERP).
By looking at the snippets below, you will see that all ads have the small yellow ad box. Any website that is not paying Google to promote their site, will not have this ad box, such as the second example provided.
There are certainly positive aspects to this change as a Google user. With the increase in paid ads, there is also an increase in the organic results on the first SERP. On most searches, it is found to have a standard layout of paid ads, organic results, news articles, followed by more paid ads.
