When Google officially made the change where the 4 ads above the organic search results went from small test to live, it was pretty significant news for many, especially for SEOs who are seeing their sites being pushed further down the page, and for advertisers who are suddenly seeing the AdWords bidding landscape changing. Usually, the ads used to be displayed all over the page, a mixture of top, bottom, and right-hand positions, based on the specific query, but now, this change does leave the sidebar free for Google’s Product Listing Ads. In some cases, Google will show four ads at the top rather than the standard three. Now, according to Search Engine Land, Google has confirmed that they are switching over from showing ads on the right side to having four ads at the top.
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You might say that’s a lot of ads “above the fold” in relation to non-ad content (something Google has historically frowned upon when it comes to other websites). “We’ll continue to make tweaks, but this is designed for highly commercial queries where the layout is able to provide more relevant results for people searching and better performance for advertisers”, said Google’s official statement. With a fourth line of promoted links added to some results pages, and two ads listed at the bottom of the first page, the remaining search result space will become even more precious.
Similarly, this change rolls out for all ads, regardless of language. Google gives the examples of searches for hotels and auto insurance when describing “highly commercial” queries. We probably won’t get a definitive answer to this until the change has been in affect for some time. Or have you already switched to using PLA and been largely unaffected? Marketers and users will likely see major changes in how they interface with Google’s result pages including advertising costs, UX and efficiency.
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The removal of what are more likely to be less revenue driving ads means that PPC ad clicks are now on average going to be worth more money.
