Google Kills "Eyes Right"

In class, the professor talked about eye-tracking and how Google search results include a small block of PPC ads on the top of each page, and a much larger block of PPC ads on the right hand side of the page. Well, not for much longer.

According to Search Engine Land, Google is killing those ads on the right, and adding one more to those at the top of each search result page:

Google is rolling out a dramatic change that removes ads from the right side of its desktop search results, and places ads only at the top and/or bottom of the page. At the same time, the company says it may show an additional ad — four, not three — above the search results for what it calls “highly commercial queries.”

I was particularly surprised by this line:

... the layout is able to provide more relevant results for people searching and better performance for advertisers.

This implies to me that Google does not distinguish between advertisements and organic search results in any meaningful way, for the end user. I would expect them to further blur the line between paid search results and organic results in the future.

More importantly, this is perfectly in sync with Google's recommendation to new advertisers that they begin by paying for an ad campaign. Since one of the main factors for organic SEO is traffic, paying can help you start getting initial traffic as well as profiling your audience. Organic and paid search efforts will complement each other even more in a world where the "eyes right" block of ads is eliminated from search results.

I don't think I've ever clicked on any ads in the "eyes right" block, so it's probably not a huge loss... And I bet the ads which remain just got more expensive. Well played, Google.