Google has an incentive to encourage users to click its sponsored ads – but this should not be to the detriment of user experience.
This aspect of Search seems to have gone awry in recent years, with Google engaging in activities that negatively impacted users.
Historically, search engine users are accustomed to ads either being placed at the top or the bottom of a SERP, with the page itself either being purely organic results or having the organic results placed in between the ads. Search features are often mixed in, too.
This has now changed.
A change was recently added to Google’s documentation, stating that:
“Top ads may show below the top organic results on certain queries.”
Detailing how placement for top ads is dynamic and may change.
In this article, we explore this change and its impact on users and organic search results.
Timeline Of Changes
Leading up to the change, Google had been testing mixing sponsored ads within organic listings in various capacities over a 10-month period.