Friday, 29 Mar 2024

Google Tests Search Ads That Blend into Organic & Can Be Closed Out

Update: As I suspected and wrote below, this seems like something interfering with the ads, see this.

Antony Jackson posted a screen shot on Google+ of a new user interface where the search ads and organic search listings kind of blend together. There is this little “Ads X” at the top right of the search results, that looks faded. It is almost impossible to tell the difference between where the ads end and the first organic listing.

The only reason one can tell is that the ads look completely irrelevant. Which makes me wonder if the browser has some malware on it and that this is really not an official Google test?

However, I am told when you click on the “Ads X” at the top right, the ads collapse and go away. Which is an interesting thing to do.

Here is the screen shot, which is not as high resolution as I like:

 

Google has not confirmed this as a test, I do not know if there are some sorts of browser injections happening here or if this is a true Google test. Nothing surprises me with Google these days around these tests but the ads are so weird that it makes me wonder if this is real or not.

Can any of you replicate this?