Google Expands PPC with 4 top ADs In Organic

[CCarter]

The future is truly upon us folks... For years I've stated to increase your traffic channels cause one day, this day will arrive. And here we are:

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Another example:

4 Top ADs blocks are now within 19% (and increasing) of organic rankings. Moz does a good job here of illustrating the change:

There has also been a significant shift from "right-hand ads to bottom ads", we are seeing less right-hands ads being replaced with more bottom ads, here is a Moz illustration of the situation:

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Some of the logic goes that it's due to mobile-first design, and the right-hand sidebar ads do not appear in mobile. The question is will the average consumer do anything about this or even notice? My money is on No.

#RIPOrganicSEO

Here is the Moz article: Four Ads on Top: The Wait Is Over

And some Google Adwords confirmation: Google AdWords Switching to 4 Ads on Top, None on Sidebar

I reached out to some contacts for comments, but...

Good luck bros, I'll see you on the other side of the veil.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Saw this today: http://searchengineland.com/google-no-ads-right-side-of-desktop-search-results-242997

I feel like the right-side ads on desktop probably got largely ignored by users. I can't say for sure since I don't buy Adwords and am not the typical user, but that's the perfect place for ad blindness.

I'm wondering if unifying the look of mobile and desktop not only eradicates those spots and drives up bidding on the main spots, but also drives up the cost of the main ads altogether where companies will go ahead and bid high without separating mobile vs. desktop bids.

This is also going to drop the CTRs and traffics of the fewer and fewer remaining organic spots. Google's going to keep pushing the limit until their reputation of showing quality drops. Might as well milk it.

I wonder when they are going to roll out bidding for CPA offers directly.

This quote from Google made me laugh:

“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.”​

So... forget the algorithm that you've spent all this time and money and brain power working on. The true test for relevance and quality is how much money you can throw at them. Their either saying that, or saying that the further down their SERPs you get, the worse the quality is, and even by chopping off one more result it's THAT much better. It's obviously just meaningless PR, but you get my point.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

This quote from Google made me laugh:

I wonder at what point users get frustrated. We've seen all the issues with people trying to download open office and ending up with spyware infused versions because they clicked the ads by mistake (I know 2 people who did that... and remember reading about some virus checkers being distributed with malware...) and I don't think I've ever seen a SERP, with the exception of a few really obvious ones for searcher intent where the content that ads send people to is anywhere near as good as the organic.

If Google is really trying to move to be an ad search engine like this not an organic search engine they're going to have to find smarter ways to rank their ads than just the higher bidder and the current quality score algorithm as objectively the stuff people are advertising isn't as good as the stuff their algorithm is ranking organically. Not saying, of course, they are perfect at organic search either but the difference can be quite stark for some queries.

 

[RiverStyx]

All I can think of is what Carter said: #RIPOrganicSEO, with the top 4 spots now being taken up with ads and for mobile users and those on smaller screens all they will see now is Ads above the fold - if you want business from G now it will be essential to have an Adwords campaign. I predict bidding is going to get a hell of a lot more expensive for those slots as well.

 

[RomesFall]

Well, they're certainly still a search engine... Problem is, are they a search engine that's built for the users or the advertisers? Looks like they've made their choice.

I agree with @Steve Brownlie if this is the route they're taking and want to continue down then they're going to have to be smarter with their ad system, because let's be honest here, ads rarely if ever answer queries like the organics do.

I wonder how many SEO agencies are in melt down right now... Time to re-brand and learn AdWords boys!

 

[built]

I never click ads when I search for something, because 9/10 times its not what I'm looking for, so from a user's perspective this just annoys me

 

[Phenom]

I never click ads when I search for something, because 9/10 times its not what I'm looking for, so from a user's perspective this just annoys me

But you also browse the internet with a different intention than most people. I have learned I tend to give people way to much credit.
For example I have watched my mom click ad, after ad, after ad. She has no idea what "Organic vs Ad" means, so she clicks the first one. There are literally millions of people that have no idea there are even ads on Google. They think its all just a "Search Engine".
Google first and foremost is gonna get that money from ads. Believe that.

As far as ads on the right side leaving, I am all for that. Schema and being in the knowledge graph just became a shit ton more valuable, and I love me some structured data

 

[hvazquez07]

Any free source of traffic dies in time, and it becomes a pay to play space. It happened to Google, it happened to Facebook, it's happening to Instagram and it will soon happen to Snapchat, etc. This is only another step in that direction. We as marketers should have that in mind when getting traffic from all over the place and prepare to compete with the big boys in the big boys pond. If you're getting cheap/free traffic, that's more likely a loophole than a reliable source of traffic that will last in time.

With less ad space this will most likely increase bids and CPC costs, mostly on highly competitive niches. Google will need to lower his ad quality policy / landing page reviews (like it has done a couple of months before due to Facebook leeching all the ad traffic) in order to keep people investing with them IMO.

 

[lion1978]

Funny how google tells website owner NOT to have ads above the fold becouse it decrease user satisfaction and then they do what themself.
But I could be wrong maybe people just LOVE them ads from google, often enough not related to what is being searched for at least that is my experience.

 

[knownerror]

Not really surprised but not worried either... most long-tails don't even display ads... however this will be a problem for those that are in flooded markets where ads are everywhere..

 

[Calamari]

There's so much white space on the right hand side of the serps now. It's hard for me to imagine they don't have a plan for that.

 

[Tucky]

Time to take those traffic leaks to the next level boys...

 

[knownerror]

There's so much white space on the right hand side of the serps now. It's hard for me to imagine they don't have a plan for that.

Or maybe they are just going to center the entire thing. Eyes never go to the right hand side often anyways. Especially on mobile, people read from top to bottom.

 

[Postmortis]

For those interested, Acquisio released a case study on these changes.

They've analysed 90,000 PPC campaigns and found the following:

• Impressions and clicks below the top 4 have dropped significantly
• CPC for spots below the Top 4 has increased
• CPC for ads in the Top 4 has increased by as much as 10.5%
• CTR for ads in the Top 4 has increased by as much as 4.5%
• PPC campaigns optimized with machine learning algorithms outperform all other campaigns

http://acquisio.com/blog/adwords-updates/google-top-4-right-side-ads-analysis-and-statistics/

 

[Capital]

This won't fuck with long tails too much... only KWs w/ heavy buyer intent. I mean that sucks... but all this can be mitigated by optimizing your funnel game.

For some reason, I still see opportunity in all this. Especially from an aspiring agency perspective.

But perhaps that's just my ignorance talking...

(It probably is)

 

[CCarter]

Waters are getting a bit rough folks, Adwords with 4 AD blocks are not at 36% and climbing:

Interesting enough the #3 position of the Adspots is the biggest winner in all of this:

As well as the Shopping Clicks:

Sauce: http://searchengineland.com/googles-new-serp-layout-4-biggest-winners-losers-based-data-243292

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Character is build not when the sun is shining the brightest but when you are behind closed doors and the darkness takes over.

Edit: (for some odd reason I wrote this weeks ago but it was sitting on my desktop, until I just saw it now)