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.
Here are some more updates about the change.
Commercial Queries
A Google spokesperson told The SEM Post “We’ve been testing this layout for a long time, so some people might see it on a very small number of commercial queries. 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. ”
What are Highly Commercial Queries?
High commercial queries are those types of searches where people express a deep intention to buy.
So think of queries where you are not necessarily in the research phase but in the buy phase. For example, “buy laptops” shows the 4 ads above the organic search results.
These are often the highest value keywords as well, meaning it will be important to be in those top 4 positions, but also to work on getting a very high quality score to lessen the impact of the cost per click.
However, with what we are seeing, some of the queries aren’t so much intention to buy as intention to convert with a specific action, such as requesting information.
Reduced Ads on Page
Despite Google going big with those 4 ads on the top of the search results, this change actually means fewer ads overall, since sidebar ads no longer display. The bottom AdWords ads that appear below the search results are not affected by this change.
For example, searching for “health insurance” shows 7 ads with the new Google AdWords layout. But with the old sidebar layout, there are 11 ads. So competition for those limited ad positions just got much tighter.
Product Listing Ads
PLAs are the only ads that would appear in the sidebar on a query that shows the 4 AdWords ads above the fold. PLAs can appear at the top of the search results for queries that do not have 4 AdWords ads too.
AdWords Extensions
Google is still displaying some extensions in the new 4 ads format. They include sitelinks, ratings/reviews, consumer ratings and more. Here is an example showing multiple extensions:
Updated Information
For some of these types of buy queries, the ads can be more up-to-date than organic counterparts. This could be especially true for ads on trending topics or products.
All countries
AdWords has made this change globally to affect all countries.
All languages
Similarly, this change rolls out for all ads, regardless of language. So this isn’t something that affects only English ads.
Percentage of Ads Impacted
Google has not released any specifics on number of searchers or ads that are impacted by this change, despite some reporting otherwise. But simply based on what people are seeing, it does affect a large number of queries.
One of Many Tests
Google tests many AdWords tests on a very regular basis, and we cover many of them here. Not all make it to be pushed out live from testing, so this shows that the 4 ads above the search results were performing well in test, especially for highly commercial queries.
Mobile Versus Desktop
We have seen Google moving towards aligning the look and feel of the desktop results with those of mobile. And one of the most visible differences are those sidebar ads, which obviously do not show up like that when doing searches from a mobile device.
Signed in Versus Incognito
If you want to see the search results before this change, right now the change has not rolled out to those who are not logged in or are in incognito mode. While this could change, it is a current way to compare old versus new… at least until it rolls out to those users too. But as of this morning, some are seeing incognito with the new AdWords change, while I still see the old layout. So it is very likely it is in the midst of rolling out to those searching via incognito.
Jennifer Slegg
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Glynmusica says
I thought i would comment as noone ever does and you psost more news than most.
Thanks
@glynmusica
Christi Olson says
Great Update, Jenn. I do have to agree with you in my own small sample set of a few hundred queries since Friday I’m seeing the 4 pack of ads appear quite frequently across all queries and not just high commercial intent queries. It’ll be interesting to see if/how the definition of commercial intent changes over time to include actionable intent.
jasa iklan says
IMHO this will inflate the CPC quite much, and bottom place ad will hit to lower CTR, all this effect are good for google bottom line, and maybe not good for the advertiser
Ana Hoffman says
Hey, Jenn – as far as I understand, this change doesn’t (currently) affect how many organic listings are shown per page; it’s still 10, right?
Jennifer Slegg says
As far as I am aware, there is no change in that respect. But other things can influence how many results are shown of course.
Lucio Ribeiro says
Jennifer, thanks for this update. Relevant and detailed.
Jignesh says
Such a detailed insight on Google’s recent updates on displaying ads.
Jennifer, according to you; does it impact on a cost per conversion? As competition has increase, merchant will have to bid higher (most probably) that will be directly impact on CPC they suppose to pay and reflect the cost per acquisition.
In contrary, it has impact positively on PLA ads (this is what i observe for few of our clients).
Jennifer Slegg says
I think it is still a bit early to tell how it will all shake out. People have been reporting ups and downs, complicated by the fact that sometimes the first ad on the page isn’t displayed until the end of the search results.
Roger Davies says
This might be old news to those of you who are riding the crest of the SEO/SEM wave, but it appears as though this change has now been rolled out across the board on all searches and there are now only 7 ad slots in Google. In all honesty, if you’re not in the top 4 then it’s going to be a lot harder to get ROI.