What’s happened with Google Ads?

SERP Evolution: AdWords Gets Rid of Sidebar Ads & Makes Room for 4 at the Top

The SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is constantly evolving, so it’s no big surprise to see the latest update to the AdWords PPC format.  It appears that Google has changed the layout of the their Pay-Per-Click ads, getting rid of the sidebar ads, and offering 4 spots at the top and an additional 3 ads at the bottom.  Then the right side appears to be reserved for Google Shopping and product feeds.

Features like Sitelinks seem to be unaffected by the latest update, but it will be interesting to see how this change impacts the PPC marketplace – and not to mention the impact on SEO.  Paid advertisers may be excited by these latest updates, but the larger share of paid real estate at the top of the page pushes organic rankings further down the page.

AdWords hasn’t made a statement publicly yet, but word is spreading among advertisers and seems to be pretty much confirmed at this point.  A Google spokesman also reached out to the SEM Post with the following:

“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.”

This change within the Google marketplace will undoubtedly cause implications for advertisers, but to what extent is still to be determined.