Google putting ads in the search box

Mon 25 May 2009 08:57, Bas van den Beld

Is PPC in trouble? It might seem like it. Less people seem to be clicking on the search ads. But no worries, Google has found the solution: ads in the search box.

Excuse me? Ads IN the search box? Has Google gone mad? No, the search giant hasn't gone mad. They've gone smart. If people aren't clicking on the ads next to the results they might click on an add which is suggested in the search box. So they used Google Suggest for a new way of advertising.

Google suggest has been around in the US and the UK a lot longer than in some other European countries. The feature is nice and besides giving us some nice suggestions it occasionally gives us some funny suggestions too. So far though we haven't seen ads in them yet. It is not clear yet if we will be getting them soon in Europe, but in the US you can gradually see them appearing. So the UK will probably follow soon.

The 'new Google suggest' has got a couple of new features. When you search from a specific SERP for example, you will get suggestions related to that SERP. This means that if you've just searched for footbal-related subjects and you start typing a new search term you will first get suggestions about footbal.

The second change is personalized suggestions. Google thinks you might be searching for the same things multiple times. On their blog they state: "We estimate that about a quarter of all signed-in searches are repeats from the past month". This means you might be seeing your searches again. Google has thought of the unwanted searches here and has added a 'remove' button.

The third change is about site-suggestions. If youre search seems to be for a specific site Google will suggest that specific site. A feature probably very usefull for many as lots of searchers are still typing in websites in the search bar.

Other changes are the removal of the result count for items in the suggest box and the no longer bolding of text suggestions.

The biggest change though is the ads in the search box. "Sometimes we detect that the most relevant completion for what you're typing is an ad," Google says. "When an ad is shown, we mark it with the text 'sponsored Link' and a colored background, as on the results page." At the bottom of the suggest list you will see a sponsored result. Ads are now really everywhere...

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Comments (2)

- Barry Adams
- [website]
Not sure I like this trend. Google's first success came partially from its excellent search algorithm, but also from its clean and simple look. That simplicity has disappeared, replaced with an abundance of advertising.... I wonder how long consumers are willing to put up with this.

Mon 25 May 2009, 11:23
- Christian
Wow. This is a very big step I'm curious about this trend.

Mon 25 May 2009, 13:47

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