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Google AdWords Switching to 4 Ads on Top, None on Sidebar

151 points by myth_drannon 11y ago

chipperyman573 11y ago
Doesn't this break Google's own rule of 3 ads above the fold? Or do ads that are integrated well into the page not count?
- jaredmck 11y ago
  Google has consistently operated as "do as I say, not as I do". They've rolled out these 4 ads above the fold off and on, in addition to Product Ads, and Hotel/Insurance comparison ads. Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
- tyingq 11y ago
  It has the nice side effect of pushing down the organic results. On a 1440x900 screen, I see only 1 organic result above the fold for most "purchase intent" queries now. It feels like there must be insane internal pressure to continue the double-digit percentage YoY gains in ad clicks.
  - aantix 11y ago
    It always felt disingenuous on Googles part to first display a paid ad for the site that I googled when the first organic result is also for that site. If i google for eBay, and i unknowingly click the first "result", why should eBay be charged a click through on that? Bull shit.
- Klathmon 11y ago
  That rule is about individual ad units in adsense. A single adsense "unit" can (and very routinely does) include multiple adwords ads. This isn't adsense, so they don't really need to follow those rules (and wouldn't need to anyway because they are the rulemakers). But even aside from that, in a way they just made a current "block" of ads larger.
  - tyingq 11y ago
    It is funny though, that for non-google properties, the advice is: "This algorithmic change...affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page." If you equate "the organic results" with "original content", the irony is thick.
    - hnmcs 11y ago
      But of course. Yet I can see the other side of the coin -- that they are right to downrank others for this (or at least: that it is a useful heuristic for judging other websites), even while at the same time they are right to frontload ads on their own results pages. Their best research probably suggests they should lay it out this way, as has been said elsewhere in the discussion. Nevertheless, I personally downranked Google Search about 6 years ago, when I could see how far it was already from any idealized concept I had of it, as a (reliable, objective) library-style index search program for internet pages, which would just report back things honestly, like a database query.
nivla 11y ago
To be fair the side ads were the least noticed by me. There were times when I even confused the top ad with the actual search result. Slightly off topic but has anyone noticed the new side loading ads on a youtube video? I keep accidentally clicking on them when moving the slider. It passes through all ad blockers and obstructs part of the playing video.
- peter303 11y ago
  Also there are spam sites that are almost the same name as actual sites such airline tickets and concert venues. They manage to come on top of search results.
- peter303 11y ago
  Also there are spam sites that are almost the same name as actual sites such airline tickets and concert venues. They manage to come on top of search results.
diminish 11y ago
Will there be a day when organic results will fall below 20% CTR?
imh 11y ago
Jesus, a search for business cards returns literally nothing but ads until I scroll down. Time turn ad block on for google.
- pavanky 11y ago
  Here is the updated article: http://www.thesempost.com/updates-on-googles-4-adwords-ads-no-sidebar-ads-change/ http://www.thesempost.com/updates-on-googles-4-adwords-ads-n... The change is only happening to people who are searching on google to buy something. It will not affect regular queries.
  - rajjalan 11y ago
    Not according to what I see. Here is a regular search for just cmdb and all I see is ads. http://imgur.com/iSHsRYB http://imgur.com/iSHsRYB
    - tyingq 11y ago
      Here's one that's pretty sad. Even the "knowledge graph" entry points to something that's bad for consumers. No honest informational results until WAY after the fold. http://i.imgur.com/LsWwvZy.jpg http://i.imgur.com/LsWwvZy.jpg
      - solaris999 11y ago
        I think that's just the nature of the query. Every single one of the first page of organic results for me is exactly the same: http://imgur.com/cypF0He http://imgur.com/cypF0He
    - kbenson 11y ago
      There seems to be a difference between a plain search for cmdb, and a search for cmdb and some other term, which makes sense to me. If searching for for just "cmdb", I think it's likely you are looking for information regarding CMDB systems, and possibly looking to purchase one (and even if not, often sales pages will do a good job of selling the main points of a product). When using an additional term, I would hazard you are generally looking for a more educational response about a specific aspect or problem, and the search results seem to reflect that with less ads. If ads are displayed more for people that are possible looking to buy something, and less for people who are not, then I think that's a net win, if done correctly. We'll see how it plays out in practice.
wheaties 11y ago
...and this is how Google opens itself to attack from a group that is ready to "disrupt" search. I, for one, love DuckDuckGo because my search results yield ...wait for it, search results! No, seriously, that's why I go there in the first place. To find stuff. Google has forgotten why they were successful in the first place and has instead pushed monetization to the detriment of their flag ship product.
- ftio 11y ago
  Google hasn't forgotten anything. Anecdotally, most users do not know the difference between paid results and organic results, and the top paid result is usually what the user wants anyway. Do you think Google didn't test this on millions (billions, even) of searches? If showing additional paid results negatively impacted either CTR or first-search successes or whatever metrics Google thought were important for their long-term success, they'd have surely not gone all in on this model. Paid results are search results.
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    Yes, its profitable for Google, but I'm 90% certain this is going to push me and the few people left at my $DayJob who use Google to DDG. Honestly, the only value Google has to me now is Google Apps because I like them better than Office365.
  - gboudrias 11y ago
    Although I'm sure you're correct, this is a very short-sighted mentality, which I believe to be the downfall of most big corporations (short-term thinking). Power users definitely know the difference between paid results and real results, and over time will steer everyone they can off of Google if it persists in showing a lack of respect for the intelligence of its users. It might take a long time, but some will leave, and over time more will follow. But that won't show in the next quarter's projections, and after that it will be too late.
    - theseatoms 11y ago
ninedays 11y ago
Title is a bit misleading. It should say that Google also adds a fourth line in the ads displayed above organic search results. The title makes it look like the only changes was the removal of the side ads.
peter303 11y ago
Far less intrusive than Yahoo or Twitter ads that are intermingled among the feeds. At least with Yahoo there is slight color background difference.
nevir 11y ago
The thing that's interesting is that quite frequently the site or page I am searching for shows up as an ad as well as an organic result. While I've trained myself to ignore ad results, I find myself feeling guilty when in this situation. Should I click the ad? Does it support the site, or hinder it?
- soared 11y ago
  There is little net effect. Its discussed in detail above, but the brand pays very little when you search for "nike" and click on the top ad that is "nike.com" Google knows you were going there anyway, and their metrics support it, so cpc is low for Nike but would be insanely high for Adidas.
aresant 11y ago
"It's a bug that you could rank highly in Google without buying ads, and Google is trying to fix the bug." (1) I love that quote - by HN's own jrockway - when he was under employ at Google. He wound up effectively retracting and clarifying (2) but I believe it wholeheartedly in original form. When you take apart Google's "Page Quality Score" algorithm they use to determine what to charge / rank you for each click you can see the brilliant intersection of Google's business and their product. AKA they believe that the most reliable way to drive search relevancy is to make sure the guy on the other end of the table is willing to pay for that user's attention. And they'll penalize the advertiser if they don't hit "relevancy" metrics to make it more expensive for that advertiser to reach you. The relevancy metrics they'll use include page speed (good for user), time user spends on site (relevancy), actions taken - tracked by Google Analytics (relevancy), and content quality / uniqueness (relevancy). If you've got a guy willing to pay with high relevancy it's a compelling reason to show nothing but ads. Now is that REALLY good for the user across the board? No way. Does this leave in the dust the small guys and dramatically favor the big guys with time and attention to get everything right? Totally. Is every small business going to wind up paying a "Google Tax" - no question. But still, that's why they do it. (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3535153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3535153 (2) http://searchengineland.com/google-clarifies-no-ads-shouldnt-help-rankings-no-seo-isnt-bad-110673 http://searchengineland.com/google-clarifies-no-ads-shouldnt...
- StavrosK 11y ago
  Now that you mention that, does anyone else find it incredibly scummy that Google shows ads for a company, leading to the company's website, above the first result, which is also the company's website when I search for something like the company name? The ad is minimally distinguished from the content, and most users don't care anyway, they'll click the top result and cost the company money that they could have saved if Google didn't present that ad there. I guess, however, that the alternative is an ad for Bar, Inc appearing above Foo, Inc when you search for "foo, inc". In that case, it feels like extortion ("if you want us to show your website first when users search for you, buy the ad").
  - ssharp 11y ago
bhartzer 11y ago
Google's testing must have shown them that removing the ads on the sidebar will ultimately make them more money.
- chejazi 11y ago
  They might be trying to unify their product offering across desktop and mobile. This would mean less things they have to optimize for, therefore more money in the long run.
- Nagyman 11y ago
  91% of paid clicks are on the top three ads. The side ads are not worth it. I'm not sure how the fourth top ad will perform. (source: Google's AdWords account team)
  - anexprogrammer 11y ago
    Depends. Google's AdWords account team want the maximum spend out of you, not best performance, so up that bid! If you are a small business or one person the main block is simply overpriced - by a long way for many keywords, and is just the brands usually. Top 1 or 2 in the sidebar are usually noticeably cheaper and do bring in a decent amount of clicks for popular keywords. I'd call it the sweet spot for someone bootstrapping or a tiny business. Sure you'll get more clicks bumping to 3rd in the main block, but only if you can afford 24/7 coverage on that keyword. If your budget is limiting display then increasing bid will mean less business overall.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
bpg_92 11y ago
Wow and Adblock doesn't seem to work on these, WE ARE DOOMED!
- mhurron 11y ago
  It doesn't? Are you sure? Google must just be being nice to me and not showing ads.
- jayess 11y ago
  Still works for me.
Justsignedup 11y ago
This makes me so happy to have adblock on chrome. Frankly though, I'd use duckduckgo, but the android integration is so (intentionally by google) terrible. Side note: Google includes YAHOO search, but not DDG. Because Yahoo poses no threat to them.
anexprogrammer 11y ago
Inevitable I guess because of mobile. I don't imagine it will be popular with their smaller advertisers though. The main block tends to be dominated by the brands and the cost to get into the main block is too expensive for a smaller advertiser. Aiming for the top of the side bar ads can do pretty well getting business for a reasonable price. Add in the number of knowledge graph results that now come from some horrifically spammy sites and G is looking a very unfriendly place for a tiny business to start up with.
- HappyTypist 11y ago
  Small businesses are dead. It's now hyperfunded startups.
shostack 11y ago
I do paid search for a living, and it has been fascinating to watch the evolution of the SERPs. This one is a big step backwards IMHO. For many queries now, the first page has essentially become an interstitial. I have to say I feel it is quite "un-Googley" in the sense of the search team's balance against the AdWords team. Many people like to rail against Google for various things, but historically they've always done a pretty solid job of maintaining this internal balance. Some will argue that "if the results are relevant to the query, that is all that matters." But this is going a step too far in that the only results are the ones paid for, which means there is another factor beyond "relevancy" at play (despite how CTR impacts Quality Score). All of this is on top of advertiser concerns that CPCs are likely to rise as a result (which I agree is likely to occur). While not the case for my account in particular, the net result is also likely to make it harder for small local advertisers to compete on the paid side when they are up against large national advertisers. Personally, I'm going to focus on beefing up our Bing presence and other non-paid channels. Diversification is important, and ultimately there's not much that can be done about it. Businesses will continue to pay the CPCs they can afford until they are no longer profitable, and then they won't. Those who don't diversify will suffer the consequences of putting all their eggs in one marketing basket.
- ssharp 11y ago
  In my experience, Bing Ads are far more profitable than AdWords anyway. I don't know if it's an audience thing or if businesses ignore Bing altogether or underfund/manage it.
  - shostack 11y ago
    Depends on the audience as they have different demographics. Bing also has substantially lower volume, so can be a headache to manage separately without a bid management platform. That said, Bing has a consistent history of mirroring AdWords changes, so this will likely occur on Bing as well. The key though is diversification because while they might do this as well, their ROAS might still be higher in the long run.
    - 11y ago
melted 11y ago
They should just switch to showing nothing but ads in the first page of results and be done with it. I'm sure they will find a way to justify how this is "good for the users", but for me, with my widescreen laptop, the 4th ad will ruin usability even further.
kbenson 11y ago
Is there any info on how much a Google contributor subscription does or does not affect the ad placement for search results? I've been considering signing up for that so I don't see as many ads, and opening up Google ads in ublock, but multiple ads above results on the top of searches would quickly become unbearable.
- thirtyseven 11y ago
  Contributor will replace ads from AdSense (ads you see on independent publisher sites), not AdWords (ads on Google result pages). They're separate networks.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    I suspected that might be the case, which is why I asked. That's unfortunate, but with further information it looks like the search result ads displayed is highly dependent on whether they think your search was commercial in nature, so I guess I'll see how much it affects me in practice.
soared 11y ago
This article was posted yesterday, heres my predictions: Extremely interested and slightly wary as to how this will affect ppc. My informed predictions: - CPC increases across the board - CTR increases across the board - AdWords loses smaller ad buyers who simply can't compete for a top 3 spot - More stringent requirements about ad content - Awareness ads (not directly leading to a purchase or conversion) will be unable to compete on cpc - Longtail keywords become more important, overall number of keywords brands are targeting will increase Ultimately I think this helps big brands who can afford top spots. They can afford higher cpcs, and better keyword bid strategies. Google's revenue will increase, but the number of ad purchasers will decrease. Ad quality (if there is such a thing) will become "better" by aligning more with users search intentions (Read: ads looking more and more like organic results). I work at a digital agency, so these are only 90% bullshit predictions.
- mahranch 11y ago
  And what about user experience? It's times like these where I do not feel guilty about using an adblock, despite being a publisher myself, and hosting google ads on my website. Is it hypocritical? Probably. But I would think the issue isn't completely black and white. Also, as a publisher who provides educational content (I'm not mentioning my website's name, but it's very, very similar to mentalfloss.com or the TIL reddit subreddit [even though my website has been around longer than both]), increasing the top ads is going to hurt my traffic. It's a bit of a selfish reason but at least I know the people who are searching for those terms are looking for exactly what's on my website. In many cases, my site is the only one with that information.
  - soared 11y ago
    I'm in a similar spot and totally agree. Despite buying tons of ads and having adsense on my sites, I use adblock and other ad/script blocking extensions. It may be hypocritical, but I have a huge huge counterpoint that I've been thinking about writing a big blog post on: AdBlockers help Google. Here is the thought.. If you use an adblocker, you wouldn't be clicking ads anyway. So you are helping advertisers by making their targeting better targeted. We don't even load ads, so they are served to people more likely to click on them. This logic doesn't really work for cpc, but it does for cpm. Also haven't fully thought it through.
graeme 11y ago
How long would duckduckgo have to grow at its current rate to become an actual blip on Google's radar? https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
tlogan 11y ago
They should rename "Google search" into "Google advertisement search". Since when I search on Google I just get ads above the fold. This is a slight inconvenience for me and but significant inconvenience for my mother in law. I cannot judge whether this is good or bad from point of view of Google.
Lazare 11y ago
Okay, so let's search for...I dunno, 'crm' in a maximised google chrome browser on a 13" macbook pro: http://i.imgur.com/rT51tmt.png http://i.imgur.com/rT51tmt.png This is not okay. I have to scroll down quite a bit just to see an actual search result. From searching. On Google. Does anyone else see the problem here?
- HappyTypist 11y ago
  Yes. I believe the intention is to have the knowledge graph appear on the right hand side.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ricree 11y ago
  On my current monitor, that search doesn't show even a single result without scrolling.
- aklemm 11y ago
  It's disturbing. Sure, Google is worlds away from where it started, but to violate trust in search is a bridge too far.
- swiley 11y ago
  Seeing this makes the web suddenly feel so dark and disorganized. It makes me feel sad :(
Mattzy 11y ago
I've worked in paid search for some time now and can't help but chime in. I'd agree CPC/CTR will increase. But if you think about it, the real logical reason for the change is that Google needs more real-estate. Search is continuing to evolve (I.e, the way the you and I look for information), and Google has been testing new ad formats to better serve queries. Limiting the number of traditional paid search ads is the only way they can continue to maintain a balance between SEO & paid search while testing new ad formats. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they began testing a new product in the latter half of 2016
- sumoboy 11y ago
  It's surprising google hasn't reduced the number organic listings from 10 to 7 or even lower on page 1. For alot of queries ad's are really better results. Google definitely has plans for all that new white space real estate.
  - Mattzy 11y ago
    For sure, it's pretty obvious. The other consideration here is that last year Google announced that mobile queries had surpassed desktop, so the overall impact to advertisers is actually going to be smaller than they think. Limiting the number of traditional paid search ads is the only way Google can continue to maintain a balance between SEO & paid search while enabling them to test new products/paid ad formats. Think integrated voice results, video results, etc. Google can only maintain its market position as a business if they continue to deliver the best search experience. And to do this, they need to continually improve their search product.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > For alot of queries ad's are really better results. I have yet to see any queries where the ads are better results than the organic results; I occasionally see queries where the ads duplicate some of the the best organic results, which are already at the top of the organic results.
Grue3 11y ago
4 ads on top for a search page, what a fucking joke. On a small screen you'd probably only see the ads before a single actual search result. This is pure greed and abuse of monopoly at this point.
- smegel 11y ago
  On my search page, I just saw exactly one search result after 4 ads and a Google "summary" grid. And the first search result was spammy. Fucking joke indeed. Edit: just switched my default search engine in Chrome to DuckDuckGo, 2 Ads and 6 decent search results on the first search page. Let's give it a shot and see if I ever go back.
SmallBets 11y ago
I think this is more about competition from Amazon than other search engines. The focus on "commercial queries" tells me there's a mini death spiral of buyers going straight to Amazon to do those commercial searches. This will let them get in between more purchases short term but drive more users straight to Amazon long term.
kevindeasis 11y ago
DuckDuckGo places their ads on the top. Top ads looks much nicer. I bet the conversion rate of those CTA would be significantly higher.
chiefalchemist 11y ago
Less slots means more demand. More demand means higher prices. The irony is, less ads probably means more clicks per page views. The real question is: What took them so long to do this?
andrew950 11y ago
Very wise move. I don't think the CTR of the Sidebar ads were that high and it is also more structured this way.

151 points by myth_drannon 11y ago

Doesn't this break Google's own rule of 3 ads above the fold? Or do ads that are integrated well into the page not count?

jaredmck 11y ago
Google has consistently operated as "do as I say, not as I do". They've rolled out these 4 ads above the fold off and on, in addition to Product Ads, and Hotel/Insurance comparison ads. Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
tyingq 11y ago
It has the nice side effect of pushing down the organic results. On a 1440x900 screen, I see only 1 organic result above the fold for most "purchase intent" queries now. It feels like there must be insane internal pressure to continue the double-digit percentage YoY gains in ad clicks.
- aantix 11y ago
  It always felt disingenuous on Googles part to first display a paid ad for the site that I googled when the first organic result is also for that site. If i google for eBay, and i unknowingly click the first "result", why should eBay be charged a click through on that? Bull shit.
Klathmon 11y ago
That rule is about individual ad units in adsense. A single adsense "unit" can (and very routinely does) include multiple adwords ads. This isn't adsense, so they don't really need to follow those rules (and wouldn't need to anyway because they are the rulemakers). But even aside from that, in a way they just made a current "block" of ads larger.
- tyingq 11y ago
  It is funny though, that for non-google properties, the advice is: "This algorithmic change...affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page." If you equate "the organic results" with "original content", the irony is thick.
  - hnmcs 11y ago
    But of course. Yet I can see the other side of the coin -- that they are right to downrank others for this (or at least: that it is a useful heuristic for judging other websites), even while at the same time they are right to frontload ads on their own results pages. Their best research probably suggests they should lay it out this way, as has been said elsewhere in the discussion. Nevertheless, I personally downranked Google Search about 6 years ago, when I could see how far it was already from any idealized concept I had of it, as a (reliable, objective) library-style index search program for internet pages, which would just report back things honestly, like a database query.

nivla 11y ago

To be fair the side ads were the least noticed by me. There were times when I even confused the top ad with the actual search result. Slightly off topic but has anyone noticed the new side loading ads on a youtube video? I keep accidentally clicking on them when moving the slider. It passes through all ad blockers and obstructs part of the playing video.

peter303 11y ago
Also there are spam sites that are almost the same name as actual sites such airline tickets and concert venues. They manage to come on top of search results.
peter303 11y ago
Also there are spam sites that are almost the same name as actual sites such airline tickets and concert venues. They manage to come on top of search results.

diminish 11y ago

Will there be a day when organic results will fall below 20% CTR?

imh 11y ago

Jesus, a search for business cards returns literally nothing but ads until I scroll down. Time turn ad block on for google.

pavanky 11y ago
Here is the updated article: http://www.thesempost.com/updates-on-googles-4-adwords-ads-no-sidebar-ads-change/ http://www.thesempost.com/updates-on-googles-4-adwords-ads-n... The change is only happening to people who are searching on google to buy something. It will not affect regular queries.
- rajjalan 11y ago
  Not according to what I see. Here is a regular search for just cmdb and all I see is ads. http://imgur.com/iSHsRYB http://imgur.com/iSHsRYB
  - tyingq 11y ago
    Here's one that's pretty sad. Even the "knowledge graph" entry points to something that's bad for consumers. No honest informational results until WAY after the fold. http://i.imgur.com/LsWwvZy.jpg http://i.imgur.com/LsWwvZy.jpg
    - solaris999 11y ago
      I think that's just the nature of the query. Every single one of the first page of organic results for me is exactly the same: http://imgur.com/cypF0He http://imgur.com/cypF0He
  - kbenson 11y ago
    There seems to be a difference between a plain search for cmdb, and a search for cmdb and some other term, which makes sense to me. If searching for for just "cmdb", I think it's likely you are looking for information regarding CMDB systems, and possibly looking to purchase one (and even if not, often sales pages will do a good job of selling the main points of a product). When using an additional term, I would hazard you are generally looking for a more educational response about a specific aspect or problem, and the search results seem to reflect that with less ads. If ads are displayed more for people that are possible looking to buy something, and less for people who are not, then I think that's a net win, if done correctly. We'll see how it plays out in practice.

wheaties 11y ago

...and this is how Google opens itself to attack from a group that is ready to "disrupt" search. I, for one, love DuckDuckGo because my search results yield ...wait for it, search results! No, seriously, that's why I go there in the first place. To find stuff. Google has forgotten why they were successful in the first place and has instead pushed monetization to the detriment of their flag ship product.

ftio 11y ago
Google hasn't forgotten anything. Anecdotally, most users do not know the difference between paid results and organic results, and the top paid result is usually what the user wants anyway. Do you think Google didn't test this on millions (billions, even) of searches? If showing additional paid results negatively impacted either CTR or first-search successes or whatever metrics Google thought were important for their long-term success, they'd have surely not gone all in on this model. Paid results are search results.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Yes, its profitable for Google, but I'm 90% certain this is going to push me and the few people left at my $DayJob who use Google to DDG. Honestly, the only value Google has to me now is Google Apps because I like them better than Office365.
- gboudrias 11y ago
  Although I'm sure you're correct, this is a very short-sighted mentality, which I believe to be the downfall of most big corporations (short-term thinking). Power users definitely know the difference between paid results and real results, and over time will steer everyone they can off of Google if it persists in showing a lack of respect for the intelligence of its users. It might take a long time, but some will leave, and over time more will follow. But that won't show in the next quarter's projections, and after that it will be too late.
  - theseatoms 11y ago

ninedays 11y ago

Title is a bit misleading. It should say that Google also adds a fourth line in the ads displayed above organic search results. The title makes it look like the only changes was the removal of the side ads.

peter303 11y ago

Far less intrusive than Yahoo or Twitter ads that are intermingled among the feeds. At least with Yahoo there is slight color background difference.

nevir 11y ago

The thing that's interesting is that quite frequently the site or page I am searching for shows up as an ad as well as an organic result. While I've trained myself to ignore ad results, I find myself feeling guilty when in this situation. Should I click the ad? Does it support the site, or hinder it?

soared 11y ago
There is little net effect. Its discussed in detail above, but the brand pays very little when you search for "nike" and click on the top ad that is "nike.com" Google knows you were going there anyway, and their metrics support it, so cpc is low for Nike but would be insanely high for Adidas.

aresant 11y ago

"It's a bug that you could rank highly in Google without buying ads, and Google is trying to fix the bug." (1) I love that quote - by HN's own jrockway - when he was under employ at Google. He wound up effectively retracting and clarifying (2) but I believe it wholeheartedly in original form. When you take apart Google's "Page Quality Score" algorithm they use to determine what to charge / rank you for each click you can see the brilliant intersection of Google's business and their product. AKA they believe that the most reliable way to drive search relevancy is to make sure the guy on the other end of the table is willing to pay for that user's attention. And they'll penalize the advertiser if they don't hit "relevancy" metrics to make it more expensive for that advertiser to reach you. The relevancy metrics they'll use include page speed (good for user), time user spends on site (relevancy), actions taken - tracked by Google Analytics (relevancy), and content quality / uniqueness (relevancy). If you've got a guy willing to pay with high relevancy it's a compelling reason to show nothing but ads. Now is that REALLY good for the user across the board? No way. Does this leave in the dust the small guys and dramatically favor the big guys with time and attention to get everything right? Totally. Is every small business going to wind up paying a "Google Tax" - no question. But still, that's why they do it. (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3535153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3535153 (2) http://searchengineland.com/google-clarifies-no-ads-shouldnt-help-rankings-no-seo-isnt-bad-110673 http://searchengineland.com/google-clarifies-no-ads-shouldnt...

StavrosK 11y ago
Now that you mention that, does anyone else find it incredibly scummy that Google shows ads for a company, leading to the company's website, above the first result, which is also the company's website when I search for something like the company name? The ad is minimally distinguished from the content, and most users don't care anyway, they'll click the top result and cost the company money that they could have saved if Google didn't present that ad there. I guess, however, that the alternative is an ad for Bar, Inc appearing above Foo, Inc when you search for "foo, inc". In that case, it feels like extortion ("if you want us to show your website first when users search for you, buy the ad").
- ssharp 11y ago

bhartzer 11y ago

Google's testing must have shown them that removing the ads on the sidebar will ultimately make them more money.

chejazi 11y ago
They might be trying to unify their product offering across desktop and mobile. This would mean less things they have to optimize for, therefore more money in the long run.
Nagyman 11y ago
91% of paid clicks are on the top three ads. The side ads are not worth it. I'm not sure how the fourth top ad will perform. (source: Google's AdWords account team)
- anexprogrammer 11y ago
  Depends. Google's AdWords account team want the maximum spend out of you, not best performance, so up that bid! If you are a small business or one person the main block is simply overpriced - by a long way for many keywords, and is just the brands usually. Top 1 or 2 in the sidebar are usually noticeably cheaper and do bring in a decent amount of clicks for popular keywords. I'd call it the sweet spot for someone bootstrapping or a tiny business. Sure you'll get more clicks bumping to 3rd in the main block, but only if you can afford 24/7 coverage on that keyword. If your budget is limiting display then increasing bid will mean less business overall.

deleted 11y ago

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bpg_92 11y ago

Wow and Adblock doesn't seem to work on these, WE ARE DOOMED!

mhurron 11y ago
It doesn't? Are you sure? Google must just be being nice to me and not showing ads.
jayess 11y ago
Still works for me.

Justsignedup 11y ago

This makes me so happy to have adblock on chrome. Frankly though, I'd use duckduckgo, but the android integration is so (intentionally by google) terrible. Side note: Google includes YAHOO search, but not DDG. Because Yahoo poses no threat to them.

anexprogrammer 11y ago

Inevitable I guess because of mobile. I don't imagine it will be popular with their smaller advertisers though. The main block tends to be dominated by the brands and the cost to get into the main block is too expensive for a smaller advertiser. Aiming for the top of the side bar ads can do pretty well getting business for a reasonable price. Add in the number of knowledge graph results that now come from some horrifically spammy sites and G is looking a very unfriendly place for a tiny business to start up with.

HappyTypist 11y ago
Small businesses are dead. It's now hyperfunded startups.

shostack 11y ago

I do paid search for a living, and it has been fascinating to watch the evolution of the SERPs. This one is a big step backwards IMHO. For many queries now, the first page has essentially become an interstitial. I have to say I feel it is quite "un-Googley" in the sense of the search team's balance against the AdWords team. Many people like to rail against Google for various things, but historically they've always done a pretty solid job of maintaining this internal balance. Some will argue that "if the results are relevant to the query, that is all that matters." But this is going a step too far in that the only results are the ones paid for, which means there is another factor beyond "relevancy" at play (despite how CTR impacts Quality Score). All of this is on top of advertiser concerns that CPCs are likely to rise as a result (which I agree is likely to occur). While not the case for my account in particular, the net result is also likely to make it harder for small local advertisers to compete on the paid side when they are up against large national advertisers. Personally, I'm going to focus on beefing up our Bing presence and other non-paid channels. Diversification is important, and ultimately there's not much that can be done about it. Businesses will continue to pay the CPCs they can afford until they are no longer profitable, and then they won't. Those who don't diversify will suffer the consequences of putting all their eggs in one marketing basket.

ssharp 11y ago
In my experience, Bing Ads are far more profitable than AdWords anyway. I don't know if it's an audience thing or if businesses ignore Bing altogether or underfund/manage it.
- shostack 11y ago
  Depends on the audience as they have different demographics. Bing also has substantially lower volume, so can be a headache to manage separately without a bid management platform. That said, Bing has a consistent history of mirroring AdWords changes, so this will likely occur on Bing as well. The key though is diversification because while they might do this as well, their ROAS might still be higher in the long run.
  - 11y ago

melted 11y ago

They should just switch to showing nothing but ads in the first page of results and be done with it. I'm sure they will find a way to justify how this is "good for the users", but for me, with my widescreen laptop, the 4th ad will ruin usability even further.

kbenson 11y ago

Is there any info on how much a Google contributor subscription does or does not affect the ad placement for search results? I've been considering signing up for that so I don't see as many ads, and opening up Google ads in ublock, but multiple ads above results on the top of searches would quickly become unbearable.

thirtyseven 11y ago
Contributor will replace ads from AdSense (ads you see on independent publisher sites), not AdWords (ads on Google result pages). They're separate networks.
- kbenson 11y ago
  I suspected that might be the case, which is why I asked. That's unfortunate, but with further information it looks like the search result ads displayed is highly dependent on whether they think your search was commercial in nature, so I guess I'll see how much it affects me in practice.

soared 11y ago

This article was posted yesterday, heres my predictions: Extremely interested and slightly wary as to how this will affect ppc. My informed predictions: - CPC increases across the board - CTR increases across the board - AdWords loses smaller ad buyers who simply can't compete for a top 3 spot - More stringent requirements about ad content - Awareness ads (not directly leading to a purchase or conversion) will be unable to compete on cpc - Longtail keywords become more important, overall number of keywords brands are targeting will increase Ultimately I think this helps big brands who can afford top spots. They can afford higher cpcs, and better keyword bid strategies. Google's revenue will increase, but the number of ad purchasers will decrease. Ad quality (if there is such a thing) will become "better" by aligning more with users search intentions (Read: ads looking more and more like organic results). I work at a digital agency, so these are only 90% bullshit predictions.

mahranch 11y ago
And what about user experience? It's times like these where I do not feel guilty about using an adblock, despite being a publisher myself, and hosting google ads on my website. Is it hypocritical? Probably. But I would think the issue isn't completely black and white. Also, as a publisher who provides educational content (I'm not mentioning my website's name, but it's very, very similar to mentalfloss.com or the TIL reddit subreddit [even though my website has been around longer than both]), increasing the top ads is going to hurt my traffic. It's a bit of a selfish reason but at least I know the people who are searching for those terms are looking for exactly what's on my website. In many cases, my site is the only one with that information.
- soared 11y ago
  I'm in a similar spot and totally agree. Despite buying tons of ads and having adsense on my sites, I use adblock and other ad/script blocking extensions. It may be hypocritical, but I have a huge huge counterpoint that I've been thinking about writing a big blog post on: AdBlockers help Google. Here is the thought.. If you use an adblocker, you wouldn't be clicking ads anyway. So you are helping advertisers by making their targeting better targeted. We don't even load ads, so they are served to people more likely to click on them. This logic doesn't really work for cpc, but it does for cpm. Also haven't fully thought it through.

graeme 11y ago

How long would duckduckgo have to grow at its current rate to become an actual blip on Google's radar? https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html

deleted 11y ago

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tlogan 11y ago

They should rename "Google search" into "Google advertisement search". Since when I search on Google I just get ads above the fold. This is a slight inconvenience for me and but significant inconvenience for my mother in law. I cannot judge whether this is good or bad from point of view of Google.

Lazare 11y ago

Okay, so let's search for...I dunno, 'crm' in a maximised google chrome browser on a 13" macbook pro: http://i.imgur.com/rT51tmt.png http://i.imgur.com/rT51tmt.png This is not okay. I have to scroll down quite a bit just to see an actual search result. From searching. On Google. Does anyone else see the problem here?

HappyTypist 11y ago
Yes. I believe the intention is to have the knowledge graph appear on the right hand side.
deleted 11y ago
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ricree 11y ago
On my current monitor, that search doesn't show even a single result without scrolling.
aklemm 11y ago
It's disturbing. Sure, Google is worlds away from where it started, but to violate trust in search is a bridge too far.
swiley 11y ago
Seeing this makes the web suddenly feel so dark and disorganized. It makes me feel sad :(

Mattzy 11y ago

I've worked in paid search for some time now and can't help but chime in. I'd agree CPC/CTR will increase. But if you think about it, the real logical reason for the change is that Google needs more real-estate. Search is continuing to evolve (I.e, the way the you and I look for information), and Google has been testing new ad formats to better serve queries. Limiting the number of traditional paid search ads is the only way they can continue to maintain a balance between SEO & paid search while testing new ad formats. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they began testing a new product in the latter half of 2016

sumoboy 11y ago
It's surprising google hasn't reduced the number organic listings from 10 to 7 or even lower on page 1. For alot of queries ad's are really better results. Google definitely has plans for all that new white space real estate.
- Mattzy 11y ago
  For sure, it's pretty obvious. The other consideration here is that last year Google announced that mobile queries had surpassed desktop, so the overall impact to advertisers is actually going to be smaller than they think. Limiting the number of traditional paid search ads is the only way Google can continue to maintain a balance between SEO & paid search while enabling them to test new products/paid ad formats. Think integrated voice results, video results, etc. Google can only maintain its market position as a business if they continue to deliver the best search experience. And to do this, they need to continually improve their search product.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > For alot of queries ad's are really better results. I have yet to see any queries where the ads are better results than the organic results; I occasionally see queries where the ads duplicate some of the the best organic results, which are already at the top of the organic results.

Grue3 11y ago

4 ads on top for a search page, what a fucking joke. On a small screen you'd probably only see the ads before a single actual search result. This is pure greed and abuse of monopoly at this point.

smegel 11y ago
On my search page, I just saw exactly one search result after 4 ads and a Google "summary" grid. And the first search result was spammy. Fucking joke indeed. Edit: just switched my default search engine in Chrome to DuckDuckGo, 2 Ads and 6 decent search results on the first search page. Let's give it a shot and see if I ever go back.

SmallBets 11y ago

I think this is more about competition from Amazon than other search engines. The focus on "commercial queries" tells me there's a mini death spiral of buyers going straight to Amazon to do those commercial searches. This will let them get in between more purchases short term but drive more users straight to Amazon long term.

kevindeasis 11y ago

DuckDuckGo places their ads on the top. Top ads looks much nicer. I bet the conversion rate of those CTA would be significantly higher.

chiefalchemist 11y ago

Less slots means more demand. More demand means higher prices. The irony is, less ads probably means more clicks per page views. The real question is: What took them so long to do this?

andrew950 11y ago

Very wise move. I don't think the CTR of the Sidebar ads were that high and it is also more structured this way.