Note: This article has been updated with current graphs and data as of February 23, 2016.
For the past couple of months, Google has been testing SERPs with 4 ads at the top of the page (previously, the top ad block had 1–3 ads), leading to a ton of speculation in the PPC community. Across the MozCast data set, 4 ads accounted for only about 1% of SERPs with top ads (which matches testing protocol, historically), until about 2 weeks ago:
On the morning of February 18, the percentage of top ads blocks displaying 4 ads jumped to 18.9%. As of this morning (February 23), that percentage has jumped again, to 36.4%. Of the 5,980 page-1 SERPs in our tracking data that displayed top ads this morning, here’s how the ad count currently breaks down:
As you can see, 4-ad blocks have overtaken 2-ad and 3-ad blocks and now account for over one-third of all top ad blocks. Keep in mind that this situation is highly dynamic and will continue to change over time.
Sample SERPs & keywords
The 4-ad blocks look the same as other, recent top ad blocks, with the exception of the fourth listing. Here’s one for “used cars,” localized to the Chicago area:
Here’s another example, from an equally competitive search, “laptops”:
As you can see, the ads continue to carry rich features, including site-links and location enhancements. Other examples of high-volume searches that showed 4 top ads in this morning’s data include:
- “royal caribbean”
- “car insurance”
- “smartphone”
- “netbook”
- “medicare”
- “job search”
- “crm”
- “global warming”
- “cruises”
- “bridesmaid dresses”
Please note that our data set tends toward commercial queries, so it’s likely that our percentages of occurrence are higher than the total population of searches. Public statements from Google are suggesting that 4-ad blocks are only occurring on highly commercial searches, but we're seeing some exceptions (here's one for "child abuse"):
Pardon a controversial example, but I think we can all agree that this search is not highly commercial. Ad counts shift regularly, even between viewings by the same users, but other non-commercial phrases that showed 4 ads in our data set include: "global warming," "bible verses," and "habitat for humanity".
Disappearance of right-column ads
In line with Google's public statements this week, we’ve seen another shift — right-hand column ads started shifting to the bottom-left position and then disappeared completely as of this morning (February 23). This is a 30-day graph for the occurrence of right-hand ads and bottom ads in our data set:
The disappearance of right-column ads correlates almost perfectly with the jump in 4-ad blocks at the top of the page. Google has now confirmed both changes via multiple sources (see The SEM Post, Search Engine Land).
It's worth noting that, even with the substantial jump in 4-ad blocks, the right-hand column historically contained up to 8 ads, so this shift represents an overall drop in ad positions. Across the 10,000 searches in the MozCast data set, ads now max out at 7 per page, with a total ad count of 25,755. As of February 16, there were up to 11 ads on a page (3 top + 8 side) and a total count of 43,740 ads. While top ads are more prominent, Google has take an overall 41.1% drop in AdWords ads in our data set across the past week.
Where is Google headed?
We can only speculate at this point, but there are a couple of changes that have been coming for a while. First, Google has made a public and measurable move toward mobile-first design. Since mobile doesn’t support the right-hand column, Google may be trying to standardize the advertising ecosystem across devices.
Second, many new right-hand elements have popped up in the last couple of years, including Knowledge Panels and paid shopping blocks (PLAs). These entities push right-hand column ads down, sometimes even below the fold. At the same time, Knowledge Panels have begun to integrate with niche advertising in verticals including hotels, movies, music, and even some consumer electronics and other products.
This is a volatile situation and the numbers are likely to change over the coming days and weeks. I’ll try to update this post with any major changes.
This is hypocrisy! Google preaches website owners that they should not have ads in the upper section (maintain quality and don't make money) but Google itself is busy in making money by filling the first page by paid ads only. I have several instances, Google showed other low quality websites in the ads for branded search terms. Google's Monopoly in search, this happens when a business doesn't have a strong competitor.
This is exactly right. Google would demote sites in the SERPs that do this.
Google presents (copies) content from other websites and shows ads only above the fold. Google webmaster guidelines, eh? :-)
yes, this is a total bs on their part. They should change their slogan to "Do as I say, not as I do".
I see your point, but...
To play devil's advocate for a moment, this change by Google may not necessarily be a bad thing for the consumer.
Most of the search terms that Dr. Pete listed in this article were pretty heavily orientated to 'transactional' search intent (with the exception of 'global warming'). That means that the searcher is likely looking to make a purchase on those products or brands. Now, if a searcher is looking to make a purchase on terms around 'medicare' or a 'netbook', then a competitive block of AdWords selling discounts and deals on those items could be just what the consumer is looking for. In this case, doesn't a richer competitive list of AdWords make for a better user experience on the search engine? I would think it does for those transactional terms.
No doubt though the click-through rate of these ads will be the indicator on whether Google made the right move. If people are clicking on them, then Google will likely conclude that the change is good both from a business standpoint and a consumer standpoint. If people don't click, then Google will have to concede that the user experience has not benefited. So, if you hate this change, let Google know by not clicking on the ads.
Looks like we're going to be praying to Google soon... Not fair, it's impossible for a new brand to grow if it keeps being like this, just the big ones with lots of money are going to be raising!
They are showing the world themselves what they're really searching in this business...
Whether you have a point or not is irrelevant. We know who you are and we know where you live.
-- Google
Well you were right at your point Devendra! Google wants everyone to follow what they say cos whenever we do try something on the basis of what they do, they update another algo. They just want to confuse us and increase the no. of their paid results.
Thank you Google! I was so tired of all the stupid SEO work. Now I can lean back, pay you and enjoy the steady trickle of traffic without that nasty competition from sites deserving to be on top.
Loved your irony! Someone finally said that hahaha
You're totally right, let's just "relax" from now on... (irony)
Well said, @Tadeusz!
The day is near when the first page of the SERPs will be 100% paid.
They have to show growth to shareholders and the easiest way to do that is to make more money from current traffic, because doubling their revenue by doubling their traffic will be really difficult.
Stay tuned for more.
Yes. Completely agreed.
Yeah, they are sunsetting organic search one ad at a time.
Really sad for small companies... but true.
"The day is near when the first page of the SERPs will be 100% paid." . And then maybe people will start clicking search results from second page :)
I wish this will not be happen and if this be then people will turn toward other search engines like Bing....
Big thanks for the update! Always good to see PPC talked about on the Moz Blog.
I think this is one of those changes that potentially impacts all of us, organic and paid search marketers alike. I've never been a believer in saying "Oh, that's PPC stuff" and then hiding my head in the sand.
Agreed- this has huge implications for SEO. As organic listings are shown lower on the page (due to both paid and unpaid content), it creates a real pay-to-play environment for companies where the only way to be seen is with an ad. Organic traffic and PPC strategies are both affected by this. Thanks for the great write-up.
Some sources consider, that Google came to the point of the "peak search query volume", as the total number of searches is growing really slow or is close to flat. Because of that, generating additional revenue is getting more difficult and the successive attempts of monetization of their product are visible.
"Since mobile doesn’t support the right-hand column, Google may be trying to standardize the advertising ecosystem across devices."
To be honest, I don't think it's the matter of design. Right now, the situation on mobile is more close to "winner takes all" in terms of ad visibility. With all of the sitelinks, snippets, mobile app extensions, app install campaigns (and growing inventory of new formats, like ads designed for automotive, hotels, etc.), ads on lower positions are almost invisible - especially in the highly competitive industries.
On the other hand, the space at the top of SERPs is getting more and more crowded, so it's better for Google to make a better use of it and let more advertisers in, without sacrificing their product's overall quality.
Some might think, that the future of search are 10 ads throughout the page the and no organic results whatsoever. Well, personally I think this is less likely to happen.
Ads on lower positions, like search results from below the fold, are giving hardly any profit to advertisers, as the majority of clicks occur elsewhere (not mentioning the fact, that ten ads next to each other would kill their efficiency for good).
Besides that, Google is able to monetize mainly searches with the commercial intent (examples mentioned in this article shows that quite well), so there is no reason to make this (4 ads on top) as a standard for every type of query.
"To be honest, I don't think it's the matter of design."
Agree. As long as there are people on desktop, why would it make sense to force desktop users toward a more mobile design?
Whether this particular change is mobile-influenced is speculation, but Google has taken a strong mobile-first stance in the past year (including comments from one of their lead designers). Almost every new feature we see launches on mobile devices first (particularly Android) and is designed around them.
The motivation on their part is simple - mobile ad CTRs were plummeting, and Google got scared. So, they major shifts toward prioritizing mobile design. Regarding the ad blocks, what I'm wondering (and, again, this part is speculation) is if the dual design just made changes too hard to track. Google needs to know what impact everything they do has on ad CTR, and if you've got two radically different layouts, that's going to get messy. This may be an act of self-preservation on their part.
This is not good for Google users. Need scroll down to see organic results. Above the fold of the page covered with full of ads for competitive keywords means Google will disturb users with Ads instead of showing relevent organic listings
Marketing point of view:
For a competitive keyword if Google showing 4 results on the top means they will gain ~~64% of the CTR. This is good for Google but not good for website owners as well as visitors.
My opinion: Google should keep Ads only in Side and bottom of SERP. If they show 4 ads on the top, then they violate core purpose of there search engine
Below line I found in Google About section
"#1: Focus on the user and all else will follow."
Now they are focusing on Ads insted of user and expecting money will follow them
I think it remains to be proven whether this change might be good for the user and to jump to the conclusion that this change must be to the detriment of user experience is facile. Leveraging monopoly power for short term financial gain at the expense of user experience would not be a smart move by Google, in my opinion, so I remain open minded at this stage.
This might have a huge impact on smaller B2B companies. Especially on exporting bussines. Their budget is often not as high as the large B2C companies.
Smaller B2C bussiness now make use of the right bar and gain from local search. But with only 4 slots, they might drop out, as the big brands often take the top positions in local as well.
For the small companies this might have a huge impact, losing a affordable way to stick out and reach potential clustomers
I have to say, it kind of stinks to see the traditional organic listings continue to get pushed so far below-the-fold. Guess we'll just have to keep innovating and using the other things they give us. Thanks for being on top of the change though, good data and insights.
Do not know if in Spain are already implementing, but we'll review it and if so we will surely change our tactics for ads. Thanks for sharing
I can see why Google have implemented this, but it sucks.
Has anyone else noticed any changes in organic SERP rankings related to this change? I'm wondering if anyone might have any comments about Google slipping in any "updates" regarding organic page rankings on the 23rd as well as this...
Concurrent to this change, my site has dropped drastically for all targeted keywords. Some of which we had been first page for a couple of years. I'm seeing no errors in my analytics account, and there has been no change to the site since the middle of January (when I switched it to HTTPS). There are also no love letters from Google letting me know of any "violations", so I am rather at a loss.
I am hoping this is a temporary blip, which has happened in the past. So if the situation corrects itself, I'll update my post here.
I knew it!!! I posted a comment about this last Thursday in the Q+A forum! It looked like a permanent change to me!
It's great to see some actual data on this. Speculation is running rampant right now on what type of queries and the potential impact of this. What is needed is time and data to understand the full impact.
Thanks!
We can't say its dishonesty. In many parts around the world, Non technical Google users, don't even knows that first results of the search pages are paid. So Google doesn't want to clarify to them. Fact is, In other words, Google many times compromising their search results in quality with the putting low quality sites above the organic websites with paid advertising.
This update is not beneficial for organic SERPs..It seems like Google is planning to show only paid results on the first page.
I may have missed this part, but have you noticed if the average number of organic links has decreased? obviously they will be pushed further below the fold but are they still on page 1?
Ad count has not impacted organic count, at least in our data set. At this point, only verticals and full site-links impact page-1 organic count.
I am struggling a little with the oft quoted "small businesses will not be able to afford to continue using adwords" or similar.
Please stay with me on this.
For the same product, at a similar price, the return for a conversion is price of the item - CPC, very broad I know but I don't want to get too detailed.
Example Price 100 CPC 5.00 for the "big" guy, Price 100 CPC "2.50" for the "little" guy.
So for the "little" guy to compete against the "big" guy they have to be prepared to accept a reduction in their margin.
If they can't afford to pay the extra 2.50 to secure their position because they are not converting enough to do so, then they should be looking elsewhere for someone to blame, or perhaps adwords is not for them.
And while I'm in "rant" mode! -
I am seeing, quite frequently, SERPs where the number 1 PPC ad is at the bottom with none at the top. That will provoke a backlash from current top spot owners - or it should do.
We're seeing that too. So many "non-commercial" (AKA less popular B2B terms) have only one at the top, three at the bottom. And since few people go to the bottom of the page, clients are asking why bother to pay?
He who has the gold.. Make the rules...
I think this is more commercial decesion by taking the edfge of customer expereince. Moreover, it will challenging for our PPC folks to get these position for their campaigns :P.
Hope to see more improvements down the line.
I feel like they need to readjust the SERP margins now. The page is awkwardly empty on the right side of the screen without ads.
Totally agree on mobile-first design point, that was my first thought. Also, I'd expect testing with PLAs coming all the way down the right rail if this sticks. Good point about the paid spots in the KG, which seems to be more frequent.
If definitely increase in 4 the top positions and there is a detriment of ads from right bar have to change some tactics, in fact for some campaigns was more profitable and effective to appear in the sidebar and not attempt to monopolize the first positions but I do not think it's the same if the ad is moved to the footer
I think the key thing for our organic brothers and sisters to take in is that this still proves as an opportunity. This is a chance to share Dr. Pete's article with our clients reminding them of our value. Non branded searches are still our main lever.
Great round up and well caught! Like Jacob I am dismayed that organic traffic is getting lower and lower placement as is a more genuine indicator of popularity and quality. Love the point about the push towards mobile - it's something I just hadn't thought about. What else do you think will change?
Don't mind I am against it
I am not too happy about it, as Google's prime objective should be to serve the community, and organic search is best form of it.
Hopefully Google will limit ads to 4 ads maximum. Too much of ads on top will kill SEO.
People work very hard to rank their website over years and one other website comes pays some money and comes ahead of this hard work, it is acceptable to some limit as both should have some share.
Tnx
The subject I believe to be the root of page results is popularity...sure money can buy position as always. Organic search is keyword popularity, trending if you like, introducing an idea , a offer maybe a suggestion of a item for sale, or service to consider. I think Google sees the competition from social search (i.e. facebook & twitter for examples) there is a back door for organic page results via social media likes and discussion. Facebook and Twitter make money from advertisers and has none the concern for organic search...maybe Google says stuff it...if a product or service has inherent popularity that is good for the product or service provider not to hard to find if the product / service is that good and is talked about , heck why bother advertising. In contrast lesser known or new product advertisers pay simple as that.
It seems to me that Google is trying (no doing) what it wants for paid advertising, after all its an evolving game with no boundaries, when they get put into a corner or restricted direction they will look at going another direction and leave that corner to become dormant and irrelevant, which is sort of what has happened here.
But if Google make all of the first page ads I feel that most people will go to the next page looking for real answers (organics) not snippets of words with no meaning about what the customer was searching for. Or try another search engine??
But I thought that Google could stipulate how advertisers adds were shown for different devices, why would they not have different bid rules for different devices? After all we can change our bids in the settings tab??
This is not small-business friendly. Maybe Google is playing God - survival of the fittest.
Exactly. its somewhat Survival for the fitteset as the competition is going tougher.
Great article thanks Peter. I certainly had no idea about the way ads on Google worked
Hi Peter
The truth is that has to be upset that although they do an amazing place to position your website in the first results of work, is not because someone has paid more than me. At the end always they win the same ...
Google Thanks for the new update, but bad news for small business companies because they cannot afford it.
And most point of this update is "Pay Money, Get First Page Ranks in SERPs" .
A big thanks for sharing a well researched update.
This moved was caused by Google stockholders, trying to increase Google's profits. Google is #1 authority on the web, without any serious competition, they make rules, we have to adjust in order to survive in business games. More spend on CPC, also more spend on SEO.
I'm in a highly competitive industry with high profit margins, my website ranks in the top 4 for organic searches (Due to the age of the website and only using white hat optimisation), I think my business benefit out of having less paid ads to compete with. This is not good for competition, there is already alot of dishonest people in my industry with deep pockets and our customers will suffer. Then think about all the small to medium family ran business that only use adwords for their advertising, they will go broke. GOOGLE HAS FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE LITTLE GUYS
I like it actually :-)
I really love the way Google works and because of the many of its algos sometimes it shows this kind of result's. But the best thing is that the PPC results are also relevant and helpful as per user.
That change was also not an real change, now it seems only two-three ad results over Google for that same phrases.
Well that's a brutal move by Google, they have dismantled quite some traffic from the top fold organic results. I have done some analysis on it, and found out that one of my website which had most of its keywords in first 3 positions are not getting the same CTR that it used to be. There has been a slight decline in organic traffic, I think they are just concerned about filling their pockets and nothing plus the Adsense earning during the first quarter has show some significant drops in CPC too.
If google did this change to make more money, then they need to fire their economic SEO advisers for this, since we've just seen a huge race to position 3 or 4 of paid listings. Resulting in a massive price decrease, I know it won't last, but boy it sure is tasty, nom, nom, nom, nom.
Soon a competitor most likely on the blockchain will compete with google, not have advertising since it's not really what search results are for, ads are the dictators of SERPs and in this day and age are mostly ignored for more democratic solutions.
Doesn't mean google doesn't see that writing on the walls and is trying to make the most of it all while they can.
What the Hell... Google is Doing. Google degrading their reputation by publishing worthless sites for top keywords.
Yes, it is the role of Google to boost its rating and effect throughout the media social. Hope that the future cost can be decreased over times!
Google rep did a brief write-up on Search Engine Land, and in their own words:
"Ultimately, we are making this update to improve the user experience on Google Search and to make that experience [is] consistent across desktop, tablet and mobile. In fact, the majority of our searches happen on mobile these days, which has no right-hand-side ads."
Well, there is no other competitor of Google now. So, we can call it either monopoly of Google or simple a change. But its just a part of their experiments.
Bing too used to perform similar changes, but we don't heed on them. Reason being Google is the tech giant.
Even beginners nowadays can create great looking, responsive designs that adapt to the media they are rendered on. It sounds weird, no, "fishy", that Google needs to pick "one format to rule them all".
Totally monopoly of Google. Lets see where it is heading.
I'm a Google AdWords Agency, but I'm not happy for this thing!
Great article, it is always good to know how is the work of google
Hey guys, a fresh perspective could be to see this change affecting two types of businesses. Transnational type like eCommerce Vs Lead generation type businesses like BFSI. For eCommerce businesses, PLA would be a major get away for eCommerce where these businesses can now earn the X dollars they were ranking (4-7) in PLA for those product categories with PLA optimizations. On the other hand my concern is for Verticals like BFSI, we've seen already very high CPCs on these areas where difference in a keyword like "Buy Online Term Insurance" is priced at INR160 on position 6 Vs INR250 on position 2 ( that's a 56% hike in CTA ) & 14% of conversions used to come from such a keyword theme positioned between 5-8. For such situations I see a definite increase in CPCs or businesses exploring other channels like Display or GSP or even Facebook, but the conversion rates will take a huge kill. The more interesting proposition I have is, imagine a display ad format for all "lead generation" type campaigns, where the right hand side could be kept for auctioning based on keywords just like "PLA". Based on these thoughts I gathered some ppc experts at my agency & we did a brainstorming session to extract this 2k word article on all possible situations like CPCs, change in Strategies & even optimizations! bit.ly/1T7FmLT Please tell us what you think about the same.
I don't know what the reason is but probably its going to hurt all businesses.
I can't believe Google isn't showing advertisements on the right hand side of the SERP's anymore. I wonder what Google has in store for us. I bet it is something huge. However, if it stays this way paid advertising is going to become so much more competitive and all our SEO effects won't be seen as effectively in the SERPs.
Thanks for the update on the latest Google algorithm it was really insightful!
Based on my observation the past weeks. I've seen 4 ads at the top and 4 at the bottom. None on the right side. Looks exciting! but what will happen to the ads at the bottom? Will CPC price increase [4 ads at the top] ?
Thanks for the update, and all the upcoming ones.
My first impression when I started reading this article was "Why would he write about ad block(er)s in this context?" Now, I'm not native in English, so when I realized what was going on, I kind of blushed (inside). :-)
Good article, as I have said.
in march and april cpc went up and conversion at all time low.
Thanks for overview, now I don't see any big impact for organic traffic in our client's websites and we will see where's Google is going with this.
Saw this also earlier on the laptop example and I´m not sure how bad i feel about this. Getting the organic results so low will have a big impact on the traffic coming through. It will be interesting to see how this works out and how much impact it will have at the end, on both sides the PPC (bid prices, quality score., etc.) and on the other side for the organic traffic.
If this happens all the ads will display in the first page till down by this it effects to the ranking for the websites who are doing regular SEO because their websites starts displaying from the 2nd page. Due to this the visitors mostly will visit the ads then Google will gain more profit from the Adwords.
Hi Peter, Just wanted to know your thoughts on google now removing all ads other than google shopping on the right hand side. As confirmed here
Do you think this will ensure we see more 4 blocks going forward as everyone is going to be pushing bids higher to be seen as a whole?
As one of the worlds oldest SEO's it is time to man up and yes women up to these Google corporate scum bags and come up with a better search engine. ANYONE reading this has the talent to make a difference.
I say lets crowd source this son-of-a-birch who would understand search better than those that spend their time reverse engineering the whole process. Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. Its time for some corporate hogs to feel some pain. Take away their money!
We know they get like 95% of all their income from paid search so lets get the ultimate ad blocker rolling!
Fat greedy company! We built you and we can make you go bye-bye you are nothing without webmasters and users.
THOUGHTS?!?!?!?
Exciting! This confirms what we had been speculating for several months now. I've updated our piece to include a nod to your data, so thank you for sharing!
In many cases, the right side is invaded by Google Shopping anyway (try the "laptops" query). When it comes to many commercial queries, it's not so much about a number of ads disappearing but being replaced by another type. In the end, it is definitely not "less ads" for the user.
Even though organic results are being pushed further down, I don't believe it's a significant game-changer for SEO. The whole business model of text ads as we see them on Google is a concept of the past trying to cash in as much as possible before it's over. I'm more worried as a PPC manager, as undoubtedly the costs will skyrocket.
Did anyone notice this being implemented on other version of Google? I haven't seen anything on google.fr yet.
Can anyone please enlighten why Google is doing this?
Regards.
To make money.
They want to make money off ads as much as possible before they are killed by virtual reality when it creates an internet 2.0 that's based more on visual information / real world data streaming than text based. Location based virtual real estate and geography based keyword ad triggers.
You think things are bad now, you haven't seen nothing yet.
This update show us that now Google will shift all organic SEO to Paid marketing. Does this update is beginning of organic SEO's death?
Google seemed the kind of company who wanted to give equality to everyone... doesn't look like that anymore.
Nope, they're loosing credibility.
"Don't be evil" is their corporate motto.
Sounds a bit sketchy. Maybe because it is.
I've been noticing this over the last few weeks so its good to get some confirmation. Honestly, it sounds like Google is trying to push organic results below the fold to maximise adwords click through.
Such a shame to now see 4 at the top..... looks like the Organic is slowly being pushed further and further away. How long before organic ends up on page 2?
Don't get me wrong, Google are are a business and their aims is to make money, which we all do, but this method could slowly be forcing those with little budget for paid ads in competitive niches to struggle as ad spaces become more expensive. By the time these small businesses have employed/outsourced a PPC specialist to develop a strategy and get the revenue flowing profitably they could already be on the verge of going out of business. The same applies to those having to outsource for organic SEO help, by the time they have helped them move back up the SERPs and into the top few positions it could be too late.
This is interesting, but I'm interested in the impact of this on PPC marketers. Of course having a 4th ad on the top block seems beneficial, but I'd like to learn more about why, and what are the downsides of this?
I'm concerned about the rise in bottom ads and fall in sidebar ads... So often bottom ads are never actually seen by the users, but count as impressions in PPC metrics, and skew click through rate data... What does everyone else think about this?
For something that's been planned for so long, it feels like the changes came really suddenly. It'll be interesting to see how it affects AdWords management moving forward. We wrote an article about the changes as well, trying to draw some conclusions about what they mean - https://www.mattersolutions.com.au/blog/2016/02/worldwide-changes-to-google-adwords-on-search-page/
Thank you for sharing this update, It is really useful information for google adwords
Thank you for the blog! I really found it to be quite interesting and informative, I would like however to know your opinion on why Google seemed to be headed down that road and what does that imply for the ad industry?!
Regards Dritan
Yes, Google has showed 4 ads at top and remove right column. But it means tough time for website just based on SEO
Awesome and cool Post..I liked and enjoy a lot while reading.
How else are they going to fund the driverless car project.
Dr. Pete, thanks so much for the quick turnaround on this post following the news!
One question: In SERPs with four ads in the top block and taking the other changes into account, how many organic results tended to be listed in your data sample? Still ten? Or fewer?
Random thought: While organic results will likely not go away anytime soon, people might need to have a contingency plan on the back burner. What will people do if and when organic results disappear either partially or completely? It might never happen, but sometimes I fear what we'll see tomorrow.
I'm not seeing any impact on page-1 organic count. Page-1 count is reduced by verticals (news, images, in-depth, and now tweets), but ad units don't change the count at present.
Dr. Pete- I would love to see a study by Moz or someone else on the impact of this change on CTR for organic results. Even though all organic results will be still on the same page- Paid #4 became Organic #1 in my opinion. Hence organic #1 is now #2 etc. Any thoughts?
Thank you
I think if Google keeps on pushing organic results down and just show pay ads, users won't use Google in thir searches. As a user, i try to find relevant information from google. If i can not find it and i just find ads, i won't use Google.
Really True.. But very sad for news for small companies...
It's like that in the Google World. We're playing in their world and just have to accept their rules. Maybe one day, they'll put 10 ads into the serps before the first organic result. Don't forgot, they are only doing that to improve to provide the user experience and result (irony). Money, money, money. :D
Please do not forget that Google is a business. Why it does that? Because it is the biggest search engine and it dictates the search market. It is a corporation that is going for more profit. We can stay here and talk about if it is ethical and if SEO is worth being done. But there is no point. Google preaches to be fair and make good content and easy to index sites, but this all for them having easier task to do in ranking sites. SEO must adapt in spite Google wish for clicks on paid ads. SEO is in the end a mean to ”trick” the system.
As the majority of the public will still most likely treat the Ads with skepticism and scroll down (now further) until they see the "real" results in the Organic section, this is all about Google creating MORE competition amongst advertisers for LESS space, and thus with Supply & Demand, the price of everybody's Adwords will go up.
I am currently working on lead generation.. but how your concept is gonna create a lead for me?
Thanks for the update. Its good to see that you guys are covering all digital marketing these days.
Hi Dr.Peter..thank you very much for share..
This is exciting!
In either case,
Most people cannot afford to
Advertise with them.
I have read an article where a company assure that the most clicked ad is the second one on the bottom. Google will always try to get more money, at the end everything is going to appear as an ad, at least at the first page of results.
Good news! I hope that this can decrease the price of the ads.
Thank you for the details, research and sharing
Pretty sure that if tests showed costs decreasing, they wouldn't have implemented it. More likely that those positions were spreading revenue thinly compared to a more competitive, more prominent and more expensive four-pack.
In my opinion, if someone is going to click an ad over an organic listing, they'll do so regardless of whether there are three or four to choose from - especially given how far down organic results already were on mobile.
So not true...especially in the long run...think about the kids who grow up with the first page being completely paid ads...it will be the "norm" and they will just click on the one they like and they think applies the best...just like how majority of clicks are on the first page now...
no doubt CPC will go up and so is ur spend. More money in G pocket...