I don't know if this has already been talked about, but I just noticed something that got me wondering what Google is up to. I've taken a screen shot of the SERP for the search phrase "golf swing" to show exactly what I saw.Basically, the ads showing for the search term have been pushed further down the page due to two video results, one from videojug.com and another from youTube.com directly below these are 2 results from Google book search.
Finally after all that, we get to the sponsored links aka AdWords ads. Most of the ads ended up being way below the fold in my browser. The screen shot actually show more ads because I hid the nav/link/tool bars on FireFox in order to get a better picture.
Thankfully, from what I can tell this is a layout test, because I tried to duplicate this on two other computers and didn't see the same SERP layout.
My guess is that advertisers are seeing much lower CTRs with this layout. Especially since the video results will probably capture more clicks due to their position and the fact that they basically look like the now banned AdSense ctr boosting trick of aligning images next to the AdSense ad unit.
If this new SERP layout is the sign of things to come, then advertisers in certain niches are going to have to reevalueate their marketing strategies and start to consider adding video to their marketing efforts since from the look of things the sponsored links for certain search phrases are going to be taking a 3rd place spot behind image, video and book search results.
On a side note, although the screen shot doesn't show it, after refreshing the page a few times I noticed that Google occasionally replace the image search results with premium AdWords ads, but most of the time the top spot had image ads.
Google Adwords Ads In Danger?
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Oleh
Admin Habibie
