Will Google Replace Some Ads with Organic Search Results?
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Written By Sepideh Saremi | December 13, 2007 | Share This
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Tech-gossip site Valleywag today caught a Google search results page that featured organic search results, videos and products, in its right-hand sidebar, which normally features high-position AdWords ads. Click to enlarge the below screenshot:
Though Valleywag notes the results were probably part of a very limited test, will Google replace some ads on its search-engine result pages with organic, universal search results that include video, images, and other non-text results? Ask.com has this feature for some search results (see Britney Spears), but I’d be very surprised if Google replaces above-the-fold ad space with organic search results. First, that’s prime advertising real estate. Second, as Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim notes:
It’s always fun whenever someone discovers one of Google’s many experiments with their search interface. 99% of the time, the discovered tests never materialize as a major rollout for Google…
Then again, the way that Ask.com integrates ads on that Britney Spears results page, right in the main body of the results, would likely increase click-through rates, which means more cash for Google. Search Engine Journal also notes the Google results page does look a lot cleaner with the universal results off to the side:
Google has become cluttered with too much media overflow in its results, and these changes are overwhleming the average user. The tests it is conducting seem to address this issue, and in line with its original Universal Search plans, Google is testing alternative yet monetarily efficient ways to better their user experience.
Google has recently made a few notable changes to AdSense, its program for publishers, as well. Last month, it changed ad click-area to reduce invalid clicks. Yesterday, reports popped up that Google is experimenting with buttons to allow end users to scroll through AdSense ads. Also yesterday, last week’s report from Search Engine Land that Google dropped its AdSense “Advertise on this site” feature was confirmed by Google’s Inside AdSense blog. Marketers can still target individual sites, but they have to go through AdWords to do it:
Our recent findings indicate that the Onsite Advertiser Sign-up feature, which allowed advertisers to sign up for AdWords campaigns on your site, hasn’t been performing as well as we had hoped. We’ve elected to gracefully retire this feature and focus our efforts on developing and supporting features that drive better monetization results for you. Call it time management, call it ROI, call it our unwavering commitment to our publishers. We want you to earn more revenue, and sometimes that means “sunsetting” certain features we created.
Topics: Advertising: Online, Ask.com, Google, Google: AdWords, Search: Innovations |