The Google Search Results page has gone through lot of makeovers. Since most of us will see this page few times a day based on how many times you turn to Google for Answers , we are going to see a new look.
With over 40,000 search queries every second, that is an average of over 3.5 billion searches per day, that’s a lot of results pages being viewed per day.. You can get Live stats on searches here
It is evident though that most of these searches are now happening on mobile devices which is one of the reason why Google has confirmed that they are doing a worldwide roll out on a change announced last Friday – Removing right hand ads.
On mobile searches due to screen size the ads served are only top and bottom. Now the same will be true for desktop searches
To clarify, the elimination of right-side ads impacts all desktop searches worldwide.
There will be three ads at the top and nothing on the right hand side.
Does that mean lesser real estate options on the top half of the page. Oh yes.
Google did say that there may be an addition of the fourth ad above organic search results for “highly commercial queries” giving examples on phrases with high intent from finance and travel.
So what does that mean?
Higher bids to get high Ad positions meaning higher CPC
Or fewer ads means better CTRs and higher return.
We may see a drop in low budget advertisers who have always played on Avg. 4.5 positions or lower.
What do you think? As a Google user are you more likely to click on an ad after you have scrolled down the page as you would on the right side? As an advertiser what impact do you think it will have on your results. And how do you think it will impact the reliance on SEO? Please leave comments below to discuss.
