I came across this unusual Google AdWords ad, and it definitely caught my eye, since it had two identical lines in a row – the sitelinks in one line, and the duplicated sitelinks, without the links, in the description line.
It could be just how the company decided to do their ad copy, rather than a test Google was running. It definitely caught my eye in the search results for a search I wouldn’t have likely noticed the ad otherwise (it was not a test search). But it was pretty unusual that it lined up perfectly.
If it is a Google test, perhaps they are simply reiterating the most popular site links for an ad in the description and they just happened to match in this particular case.
Here is another example, with some annotations in the middle.
If it isn’t a test, it might be worth running your own tests with matching sitelinks and descriptions and see how the CTR is compared to non-matching.
Added: It could be duplicated callout extensions instead of description.
Jennifer Slegg
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James Svoboda says
Hi Jennifer,
I’m thinking that this looks like the advertiser duplicated their Sitelinks as Callout Extensions.
Brooke Townsend says
It seems as if they duplicated their callout extensions with their sitelink extensions. Not a great practice, but that could explain why some don’t have the link to them.
Rachel King says
Agreed that these are callout extensions, however it’s an interesting strategy if it’s purposeful. My initial thought was “How sloppy and lazy!” but on second thought it’s actually very attention grabbing. The perfect alignment makes the ad pop. Have previously been of the mindset that callout extensions are extra real estate for boasting about how awesome your customer services is, etc, but it would in fact be a great test to duplicate the site links as callouts and gauge CTR lift. I may try that, thanks!