Google Drops Side Ads. Adwords subscribers SHOULD BE concerned.

[Gerry]

If you haven't noticed lately, Google has dropped its right sidebar advertising. In place are thumbnail views of the website.

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8253...tm_source=blog

For those of you that pay for Adwords and placement, this should be of concern to you.

In essence, less ad blocks per page will most likely drive up the prices of bidding for keywords. This should concern advertisers who are trying to watch the bottom line.

Some have asked why is google dropping advertising streams when this is their revenue source. Well, only google would know that answer. But I have to guess that these were not major money makers in terms of comparison to ads placed at the top of the page and perhaps even the bottom of the page.

I am not sure that this is the case in every Google market as many of my searches still show the side ad menu bar. However, when I do see ads on this sidebar, they are pretty "local" or localized, meaning google is placing high priority on the searchers location as well as search (and browsing) history.

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However, even with the ad sidebar, these ads are covered over when the site thumbnail is displayed.




Which leads me to the next point (not mentioned in the article).

If you haven't noticed, Google is now displaying thumbnails of a site when you hover over that google search result.

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Again, this should be yet another indication of the emphasis on websites, content, and design.

Will this hurt parked pages? It surely is not going to help parked pages. Especially with Google who is always changing their search algorithms. None of their algorithms favor static pages or parked pages.

I use as an example one of my parked domains:

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This domain is PR ranked, DMOZ listed, solid history.

But, will the consumer recognize this as a parked page? Possibly not on the first look. But there is a possibility the consumer could begin to recognize what a parked page or ad laden page looks like and skip it entirely.

More importantly, without clicking on a single search result, you are able to see each individual site and its content rapidly. Most people agree that if a person visits your site and you don't capture their interest in the first 5-6 seconds, you lose that customer. Now, the viewer is able to view each site in much faster fashion without ever visiting that site which is ultimately going to drive traffic down, down, down.

Looking at my own example, because this is a parked page with a significant history and directory listing, you can quickly screen (scan) the top 10 results and see that most of the website thumbnails deal with the domain name, SEO, domain name discussion - in other words, very very little to do with a product or service of Pearly White Smiles. This is NOT what the consumer is looking for. This is NOT going to be good for traffic domains of any type that are parked. Here is a case of increased discussion and SEO pages leads to a less desirable search results for the consumer. In the first 5 pages of results (50 results total), there is only a handful of actual product or dentistry results.

I think it will be prudent for all domainers and parking companies to keep up with the ever changing trends and strategies that google is employing. Because those changes are not for the benefit of domainers and parking companies. It is all about the consumer and consumerism.

[dmyre]

The sidebar ads are only covered if you click the arrows to show the preview.
You also have the option to close the preview, showing the ads again.
At least that's what I have experienced in my area. It could be different in other areas...

[Gerry]

The sidebar ads are only covered if you click the arrows to show the preview.
You also have the option to close the preview, showing the ads again.
At least that's what I have experienced in my area. It could be different in other areas...

Apparently, it is different in different markets.

The article shows a search page devoid of ads.

Perhaps google is trialing this in certain markets.

Still, going to be tough for those ad dollars to compete for those top advertiser spots.

[Tom K.]

I'm guessing Google is doing well enough with their Display Network (i.e. Adsense). By removing sidebar ads and increasing competition for search results placement, "should" trickle down better payout for their Diplay Network partners. Logically higher bids would be delegated to partner sites if less real estate is available on the serps, assuming that less ads would be shown at the bottom of the pages.

Also, wondering why Google changed the name from Content Network to Display Network. Previous label gave more emphasis as to what was main emphasis of the network: "quality content".

[Gerry]

I'm guessing Google is doing well enough with their Display Network (i.e. Adsense). By removing sidebar ads and increasing competition for search results placement, "should" trickle down better payout for their Diplay Network partners. Logically higher bids would be delegated to partner sites if less real estate is available on the serps, assuming that less ads would be shown at the bottom of the pages.

Also, wondering why Google changed the name from Content Network to Display Network. Previous label gave more emphasis as to what was main emphasis of the network: "quality content".

It is mind boggling to even try to figure what they are doing or why they are doing it. The reaction from this thread alone shows that changes are not uniform and across the board but perhaps rolled out into different markets.