Over the past month or so, we have been receiving reports from searchers and advertisers that Google AdWords is showing some funky weird ads. The ads are displaying the first line's description in the same line as the title of the ad. So the title and 1st line description are the clickable link of the ad.
Pamela Parker covered this at Search Engine Land, but I am still getting reports of this, so I figured I'd cover it.
Here is a screen shot from one of our readers:
The part that reads "Find accounting jobs on Workopolis is the first line description, but here it is being put in the title of the ad. This is happening fairly often.
I am not sure if this is a test or a bug but it is happening every now and then. One advertiser says it is not a bug.
One advertiser posted a thread about this at WebmasterWorld. He said:
The titles are getting longer (up to 30 characters, dynamic insertion explains this) but they are also showing the 1st line of the description on the same line as the title. This is making the title about the same length as the organic titles and they are blending in a lot more. (since the domains were all made lower case as well)This is happening for a few of my clients but not all and it's not happening on all users pc's in the office so I believe there are a few users here on a selective testing list.
If I knew my ads were not being displayed as shown to me within the ad preview window within the AdWords console, I'd be upset. Wouldn't you? Or would you prefer a really long title?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: Many are pointing out that this is a test and not a bug. One commented with a statement from their Google account rep:
We are changing the placement of description line 1 for certain ads that appear in the top positions above the search results on Google. With the change, any description line 1 that ends in punctuation will be moved to the headline and separated by a dash.Following tests, we believe that it improves both the user experience and advertiser performance, as it allows users to view relevant information from advertisers more quickly and easily.
All advertisers whose ads appear in the top positions on Google and have a description line 1 that ends in punctuation are/will be affected.
It applies to cases in which description line 1 ends in a period, exclamation point, question mark, or has country-specific punctuation.
Update: This is now official, see the AdWords Blog.
