Comments on: Google "Head End" Search Results: Ads as Content, Or…Just Ads?

By: Sapta

Sapta — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 04:31:46 +0000

I think display ads on search results is different for some territory in the world, since it provides features for adword ads geographic target.
By my opinion, Google's ad display a lot or a little, it really depends on the number of keyword advertisers to place ads and for certain regions.

By: Don Calendar

Don Calendar — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:02:58 +0000

Google is probably the only company that has kept its integrity when it comes to adsense!

By: JG

JG — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:16:10 +0000

Google corporate philosophy in 2009, under the category "You can make money without doing evil:"

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090315200643/http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html

"However, you may have never seen an ad on Google."

Google corporate philosophy in 2011, under the category "You can make money without doing evil":

http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html

That phrase is conspicuously missing.

Q.E.D.

By: vermasi

vermasi — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 06:19:48 +0000

Also consider that google added ads at bottom of messages in gmail.
Not inside the message, just below it. vexa

By: barmas

barmas — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 06:16:14 +0000

I am just thinking about how things could go if google were not concerned with quality and relevancy. But they are. We have seen the results of the recent changes to dump spammy sites from the SERPs.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 17:25:41 +0000

Tried it with a few commercial searches in the UK and noticed nearly the same kind of AD heave above the fold search results. Not sure where several of the comments are but the points they are making seem to miss the point of this article.

The lesson here is if you want to appear above the fold on page one crack open your piggy bank because Google sells to the highest bidder. If this proves to be true we can forget about relevancy and quality in our search results. Let's hope this is, as one commenter indicated, the result of Google testing and playing and not an indication of things to come.

You can see how, with all the playing, and the stated goal of getting people to come to the site, click and go to the destination within a few seconds, Google may be trying to 'educate' users to click on the first link that looks good, and if that first link happens to be a google ad, so much the better... and if playing with the layout triggers an increase in clicks on paid ads, better still... I am just thinking about how things could go if google were not concerned with quality and relevancy. But they are. We have seen the results of the recent changes to dump spammy sites from the SERPs.

Thanks for the article.

By: aramasa

aramasa — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:22:08 +0000

f you are searching for a Sony tablet, competitor ads are likely less useful than content about Sony tablets. Yes, you could argue that you might not have thought of an Asus so an ad from them is useful, but that’s a pretty flimsy argument.

By: selly

selly — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:11:44 +0000

adword to selly in marketing online with keyword in adwords google, check http://sellyyustiawati.blogspot.com/search/label/Opini%20Publik

By: Naval Ravikant

Naval Ravikant — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 02:24:35 +0000

Funny - I did exactly this analysis 5 years ago, and at that point, Ask.com had the 65/35 split and Google was the good actor (Bing and Yahoo! were in the middle):

http://startupboy.com/2005/12/20/fix-the-search-interface-first/

By: Seo

Seo — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:59:54 +0000

When you take an “above the fold” perspective, you are correct, it has a 65/35 split with 65 appearing to be paid and 35 organic. Just think, that if Google added one more line to the top ads, that ratio would quickly become 80/20. I am sure Google has thought about it to try and generate more revenue. If they did, I wonder how that would affect their users, (i.e. send them running) and the traffic that companies depend on from Search Engine Optimization.