Sorry if this discussion has already started, but I couldn't find the thread. Google has killed the right side ads - what are your thoughts on this? Good idea? Bad idea? My opinion is, if it's not broke - don't fix it. Here's the full story: https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/...ht-hand-side-ads-what-does-this-mean-for-sem/
I started such a thread on Warrior Forum, if you care to read my long intro and thoughts. In short, understanding how the system works, I don't foresee an increase in CPC. As I thought, almost everyone thinks they will increase. I seem to be one of the few who thinks otherwise. One of them is Larry Kim. A comment thinks they will go down but he thinks because people will leave Adwords which may happen somewhat but that won't really affect CPCs. PPC has always been competitive. This changes nothing as far as that's concerned. Those who can't keep up will still lose and drop out. Those who can think rationally and intelligently will survive. Always has been.
Off the top of my head: It's probably a good thing. I hardly every clicked on any of the side ads. It's also an open area now for authority businesses to be featured / displayed (as an example: Sea World Orlando). And by the way, you should see there that the side ads still exist, they are just more pertinent to what is being featured there. The CPC, of course, will go up. Actually, two days ago I noticed that my impressions and clicks went down. I was like "What on earth?". Now I know. Does anyone know if the structure is going to change for the search partner pages as well?
I would imagine this layout attracts a higher CTR. I know sidebar ads with Adsense on sites I've owned never got clicked that much. They surely have tested this. It sucks from a traffic perspective, because it bumps the organic search results down.
this likely means more money for adsense as people may shift to non search display thus increasing cpc there too again good for google's pockets but also for some of us
dcristo said: >> I would imagine this layout attracts a higher CTR. If that's the case, that's a win for every body: Google, advertisers and users. It's too early to tell but so far, I see a decrease overall, less than 1%, nothing out of the ordinary. Normal ebb and flow from week to week. On a position by position basis, same story with some outliers. More data is needed. This won't affect publishers using Adsense. This is just on Google's search engine. I don't think this will push more advertisers to use display campaigns more. If you didn't use display before, no reason to now, especially if the results of ads at the bottom of the page give similar results as the side ads which I suspect they will.
Who's to say? Maybe click rates on organics will improve as well. With less clutter and distractions on the right, that would not be surprising. As Google has been testing this layout for a while, they would know and if CTRs on organics are higher, they are laughing at SEOs predicting doom and gloom. The problem with most SEOs is that they don't know their numbers so even if it helps them, they won't know.
Are you saying this with a straight face, or? Google couldn't care less about SEOs. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out PPC is their bread and butter, and improving CTR for Adwords in the main search results can only have a negative impact on CTR for the organic search results. It seems like you don't know the numbers yourself. Let me tell you. It's all about being above the fold. The first result on the page gets infinitely more clicks then the results on the bottom of the first page. Now, with with new ad layout, the #1 "organic" result gets bumped down to #4 or #5 or whatever. And you're seriously saying this could improve organics as well just because there are no "distractions" lol give me a break.
I don't know what will happen. But it did occur to me that this new, cleaner look could help organic click rates. Of course PPC is their bread and butter. Google is really an advertising company. And they will do whatever they can to improve their revenues, that's what corporations do. That doesn't mean that there can't be benefits to organic listings as a result. Yes, they don't care about SEOs, the people trying to get to the top. That's not what they are in business for. We all know that the top organic listing has the highest CTR. That won't change because the listing is a bit further down. What might change is the actual CTR. Will it go up, down or stay the same? Question is, do you know what YOUR click rate is? Do you know your number in your particular case? If you don't, you won't know any effect, positive or negative. And if you don't know that, you're working in the dark with no idea what to do next because you have no data.
Either I have misunderstood what you said, or you just contradicted yourself. I take it you mean the CTR of the lower results may change since there are no distractions?
This is what I wrote about it on linkedin. Big Changes to Google PPC Requires Your Attention it is time to review your pay per click advertising with a specific emphasis on whether you will appear in the top 4 (desktop) and top 2 (mobile) paid advertisements. What has Google Changed? A few months ago we noticed Google testing a major change to the Google pay per click (PPC) presentation of ads. Previously, there were generally between 1 and 3 advertisements on the top of the screen on desktop devices and then other advertisements were listed down the right side. The advertisements on the top of the screen provided the best return to most advertisers. These ads also provided the highest revenue to Google. As of early February 2016, on the desktop there are now up to four advertisements at the top of the screen. On the mobile screen there are two advertisements at the top of the screen. This takes up the most effective screen real estate and requires a re-evaluation of your digital marketing mix. What should you do? Our advice to clients has always been to be on the first page and ideally on the first screen to achieve their goals. Historically, the best return on investment (ROI) for most clients was through search engine optimization. Despite the fact that we are able to achieve significantly more first page results in organic search (SEO - where clients do not need to pay every time someone clicks on their website link), we have been switching more of our client's spend to PPCbecause it was harder to achieve 'first screen' results using SEO. Figure 1 - Desktop Google search results for Melbourne Plumber 25-Feb-2016 Figure 1 shows that whole of the first screen is made up of PPC and results on Google Maps. Organic search results require the searcher to scroll down the page. This will result reduced effectiveness of organic search engine optimization. It requires re-evaluating your mix of digital marketing spend and also optimizing for Top 4 results (desktop) and Top 2 results (mobile) in PPC. Figure 2 - Mobile Google search results for Melbourne Plumber 25-Feb-2016 We believe that this not a short term change. This will likely to lead to more revenue for Google. Moz reports are showing that four ad blocks account for more than 35% of the searches and that this change has been in effect for the past few weeks. Bottom Line: It is time to review your pay per click advertising with a specific emphasis on whether you will appear in the top 4 (desktop) and top 2 (mobile) paid advertisements. Spend on organic (SEO) activities should be part of the re-evaluation.
I've re-read it myself to make sure I didn't misspeak or had a brain freeze but I don't see what you misunderstood. But let me elaborate. An organic listing in first place (after however many ads may be above it) is expected to have a certain click rate. It HAS a certain click rate. Indeed, it should have the highest click rate of any organic listing. Each successive typically has a lower click rate. Now the organic listing that was in first before the change is still the first one today. It's just pushed down towards the fold because now there are four ads instead of three. Plus the ads have extensions they didn't before. But it's still the first one and therefore expected to have the highest click rate of any organics. That hasn't changed. What MIGHT change is the relative click rate of those organics. At least that's the worry of SEOs because it's further down the page. A valid concern. A particular listing might have had a 15% rate before. But it could go down to 10%, stay at 15% or go up to 20%. Who's to say? There are a lot of factors affecting the click rate. This includes the look and feel of the result page which is now very different. I speculate that even though an organic listing is further down the page, it may get the same click rate as before so if you had a 15% rate before, you will remain at 15% now.
None of it matters, really. The change, in my opinion, was made to make the desktop and mobile layouts look the same / similar. With more searches made on mobile devices it is the desktop layout that's now being tweaked. Secondly, no CTR will be lost or gained for free search results. A few more paid ads at the top is not going to make a huge difference. Who in the world clicks on their paid advertising anyway? I never do. Have not done it for years (maybe by mistake). The top paid ads are, as a rule, an irrelevant garbage, if you ask me. If I were Google, I'd make their paid ads look like their free ads. The paid ads CTR would go through the roof!! Most of it would still be an irrelevant garbage, but, hey, the advertisers would finally get some real action.
Mostly agree there. Likely the major reason is to have desktop and mobiles be more similar. As the technology gets better and less expensive, there will be more done on smart devices than desktop so in the end, it won't matter much for advertisers targeting consumers which the vast majority are. Remains to be seen but agree there too. I've mentioned that on another thread. I tend to believe they will remain pretty much the same. So those doing SEO may not see any change. I'd like to hear from them in a few weeks and months. Agree there too. But there's one small problem in that FCC regulations says you need to clearly indicate that they are ads. Would CTRs go through the roof? That I'm not convinced. But we'll never know. Not all ads are irrelevant garbage as you put it. I find it strange someone would not click on one if it appears to offer them what they are looking for. Of course for that to happen, a proper search needs to happen and advertisers have to target that search. If you search in generic terms, say "widget" and there are advertisers bidding on that term, yes, you'll get garbage ads. Probably not very good organic listings as well. But if you search "round metal widgets" and an ad is about round metal widgets and promises just what you need, why not click on it? Many others do so they don't think it's garbage.
I hate to resurrect an older thread that seemingly was done with. But sroids did that and it would be nice to know his opinion and add to the conversation instead of a one-word reply. But in the last week or so, I noticed that Bing has also removed right side ads. Microsoft has never been much of an innovator, more of a follower so no surprise they would do the same as Google. But they surely did it not just because Google is doing it and follow their lead. They likely looked at the data and saw/realized that this would be good for them too.