Major changes in Google ads

Monday, February 29, 2016

Surprise! Google just made important changes to its ads. In case you didn't hear about it before, here's what they're changing:

It's the end of ads on the right side of search results.

That being said, there are 2 exceptions:

1. Products for sale (e.g.: products from Google Shopping)
   
2. Knowledge Graph integrated advertising (e.g.: listening to music)
   

SEO experts don't all agree if this is a good or a bad thing for advertisers. One thing is for sure, the ads that used to be displayed on the right really weren't as efficient as those who were presented in Google's search results (and they weren't even displayed in mobile phones!). That being said, it was an inexpensive way for companies to get some visibility. The important thing in this update is cross-platform uniformity of all search results, whether it's on desktop or mobile.

GOOGLE adds a 4th Ad in your results.

When you search, the first 3 results that are displayed are often ads. These results (marked in yellow) will go from 3 to 4. They did mention that this will only happen for search terms that have lots bids on them, but don't be surprised if, eventually, it will always be 4 ads for all search results.

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This change causes the organic search results to be lowered even more, so we might see a bidding war to try to stay on top. Something's for sure, you'll have to start to think about paying to be seen in Google.