Google announced that ads will no longer appear on the right-hand side of the search results in desktop browsers. This is not a sudden change, as Google has been experimenting with different ad layouts for quite some time, but it marks a genuine shift in Google’s overall ad strategy. Product listing ad blocks and Knowledge Panels will continue to show up on the right side for relevant queries.
So what does this mean for the organic search results? Not much, but a definite change will be noticeable. Google will begin showing up to four ads at the top of the search results, and there will also be three ads at the bottom. The number of ads on a search results page will shrink from around 11 to a maximum of seven.
The number of click shares that the right-hand ads received was very low, which is one of the reasons why Google has made this change. Of all ad clicks, around 87% were for the top ads and 13% were for the right side. Google learned that people were more apt to click on ads within the organic listings column and are simply following that trend.
It’s too early to tell if this will mean higher ad rates because of the decrease in number of ads. Some industry sources say it will, but time will tell. But for those who prefer to seek higher organic rankings rather than ad spots, this may begin to impact their efforts because more ads will now be prominent above and below the organic results. This is something that Solutions By Design SEO team will be keeping an eye on in the coming months.
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