Google Updates Sponsored Links Search
Posted on July 29, 2008
Filed Under adwords |
The eagle-eyed search experts here in Efficient Frontier's London nerve centre alerted me to an update on Google's Search Sponsored Links feature. 
A link from the main SERPs underneath the right hand column allows you to browse just the ads for a particular search term.
Previously, that link just sent you to a page like this but now it's quite different:
The most obvious thing is that now there are 12 ads on the page in a 3 across, 4 down grid.
New Results Count
More interesting though is the results count. In this case Google is showing 1-12 of a possible 877 ads. If the number is to be believed, I think this is the first time you've been able to get a count of the competing advertisers for a given keyword. Compare this to the green bars that are available in the Google Keyword Tool.
This information would also be interesting for analysts, as some research suggests that the number of advertisers is falling.
Different Ranking Algorithm
The results are also ranked differently from those seen on the main SERPs. Google's help page states that:
- Ads are ranked differently from competing AdWords ads.
- Clicks and impressions accrued by these ads aren't reported in your account.
- Advertisers are not charged for any clicks that result from these ads.
- Ads are not filtered for language preferences.
- Ads shown include those that have already met the daily budget for that day.
Why Has It Changed?
So in short, this new sponsored links search is a complete gallery of all ads that Google would consider showing for a particular keyword. All very useful, but why has Google done this? What does this add that the Ad Preview tool doesn't? Any ideas are welcome!
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4 Responses to “Google Updates Sponsored Links Search”
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It would be interesting to know how these ads are ranked, Google are a being a bit vague about it.
For advertisers it is great news though, knowing how many advertisers you are competing against for any search term is invaluable info. The ad preview tool is great but doesn’t let you see the entire bidding landscape at a glance.
There has to be more to it though …
This part of the help page seems particularly weak:
How many users are actually going to search through the ads? Not many. There must be some other reason.
I think that the people getting the benefit of these ads are Google. By having an unbiased results page that is not influenced by bid price, quality score or remaining daily budget they can get a true gauge of what works best in ad copy in terms of generating high CTRs, they even get this information by vertical.
Having access to this information keeps Google ahead of any changes in search trends and allows them to make informed recommendations to advertisers, again benefiting them in the long term.
I can’t think of any other reason unless it is just to provide searchers with a complete list of search results for their query. However, if searchers get wise to it it will affect Google’s revenue dramatically as they aren’t charging advertisers for these clicks.
That’s an interesting idea. I’ve always thought that the Adwords system’s strength (its ability to maximise ad revenue for Google) is also its biggest weakness. As the system is pushed to generate more money through a higher eCPM, it’s less likely to test ads in different positions.
Testing is important because there could be a great ad languishing in position 20 that would work well in position 7. It will have a limited CTR history due to lack of exposure, so the system will never test it at a higher position. Equally, the initial CPC pain that an advertiser will have to endure to get it some CTR history means they probably will never do it.
So maybe, as you suggest, this is a way for Google to get some other measurement of CTR outside the usual system. I’m curious though just how much data they would get through this page.