Italic links in Ads

Has anyone else noticed that the links in some of their ads are italicized? This morning is the first time I have personally ever seen it.

 

I've noticed that a couple days ago

 

I have been seeing this for a while now but I thought there was something wrong with my browser or java

 

I'm sure someone started a thread on this a few days back. I've not seen any myself and I'm not aware of any official annoucement about them.

 

I see it too. I sometimes see A google G image rather then "Ads by goooooogle" it says "Ads by G" but the G is an image.

 

probably they want to know how people react to italic ads. The text on website is very rarely italicized, if the ad is in italic, the people will see that there is an ad, and is not part of the articles in the website.

 

They've been testing this for a while (it rarely appears though, I think I noticed it once on my site). I hope they don't keep it like that because it'll ruin the blending of most sites

 

You can find a picture taken from a real site on the thread I started a few days ago: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=255145

 

Yeah, most ordinary links aren't in italics. Maybe it's just another attempt by Google to get webmasters to design their sites 'the Google way'.

 

I also saw it for the first time today. Can't say that I like it very much since I prefer the traditional look. However, if it means a higher CTR I'd be happy to put up with it.

 

Yes, it's been going on for a little while now, same with the BOLD links.

italics are crap looking.... IMO.

 

yeah i have seen it too. probably they are testing to see if the ctr will increase with italics

 

I dont like the italics they are harder to read, but thats just me.