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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, t
by 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 agoIn 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 agoDepends 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.
- hayksaakian 11y agoI thought bing already showed more ads on a serp than google
- shostack 11y agoIt varies. I just did a search for "car insurance" on Bing and it was all ads above the fold (aside from the "Related Searches" block in the upper right). My point was more in following suit with the removal of the right siderail ads. But they both have awful experiences with the above-the-fold first page results now if I'm approaching it from a "consumer wanting a non-compensated search result" standpoint. They both now have interstitials on the SERP for all intents and purposes.
- zippergz 11y agoI've found this also, though it does vary drastically depending on the specific details.
- Gustomaximus 11y agoAlso I find interesting, and not mentioned in any Google news is they seem to be showing less (or zero) ads to more generic and low value searches E.g. Search 'Cat' vs. 'Credit Card' Given people can pay up to ~$20 for a credit card click and more generic clicks are closer to $1, I wonder if they found if they pile ads on the high value KW's only they maximise profit whilst keeping the Google image 'we value organic search results' feeling by not showing ads in the low profit areas. Like you I feel they are loosing credibility in this latest evolution. Its amazing to see how little, if any, real-estate organic results holds on a typical laptop screen. I kinda feel they are increasingly opening the door for competitors to step in on their cash cow. I personally have moved to give DuckDuck another go since this.
- chiefalchemist 11y agoWhat you call "low profit areas" most advertisers call "wtf? I paid for what?" Removing ads wasn't a PR stunt. Hardly. It was simple math. Piss off enough advertisers and they leave. That's not PR. That's smart product dev.
- Gustomaximus 11y agoMaybe a generic work doesn't work for you but I've had great success with low value/competition KW's when they were more accessible via proper product, KW and ad copy selection. I wouldn't take this as a truism and believe there is more to it than your theory. If Google were truly worried about advertiser ROI they would better deal with all the bot clicks and generally dodgyness on the display network. Both easily done and they love to play dumb to a large extent on these.
- shostack 11y agoThere's a big difference between long-tail super-specific terms (that Google has increasingly been blocking due to "low search volume") and top-of-funnel generic queries, which for most are fairly low-quality comparatively.
- wodenokoto 11y ago
- swiley 11y agoWhen I search for the Virginia DMV I have to scroll past a lot of very scammy looking AdWords links. I accidentally clicked DMV.org once or twice.