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September 15, 2006

Google Testing Removing Top Blue Ads Based on User Behavior

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that the top blue AdWords ads have been removed from the Google search results page. But in fact, it seems to be a user by user setting. Some users will see the top blue ads and some users will not. What does it depend on? It seems it is based on your ad clicking behavior.

Check out this quote from the thread:

I spoke to my account rep. They are testing a new feature whereby when a user performs multiple searches and does not click an ad, the ads are all moved to the right side of the page. The rationale is that the user does not want to see the ads anyway and it lessens the chance of a poor prospect clicking on an ad. If you clear your cookies, the results will go back to normal.

Very interesting... First I heard of this.

I tested this myself by refreshing over and over again until the top blue ads dropped off and they did after about 10 refreshes for a search on ipod.

ipod-google-adwords-blue.jpg

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.



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posted rustybrick in Google AdWords at September 15, 2006 8:16 AM Comments (5)

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Comments

Can we assume that the 2-3 ads that would appear on the bottom of the right column would then be move to page 2 of the SERPs? Has anybody tested this yet?

 

Posted by Andrew at September 15, 2006 15:17

I don't seem to be getting the ads on top anymore either, only 'personalized' stuff like digg articles etc. I never click those ads anyway, only the ones on the right when I'm looking for something to buy.

 

Posted by Jonathan D. at September 15, 2006 16:15


Seems to me the quote and the top ads for ipod moved to the right after n refreshes are two different algorithms. The first seems to be based on a history, possibly the user history if (s)he's logged in, while the second is just (from my tests) a counter attached to the IP address. You can for instance, after the ipod top ads have gone, switch to a different web browser, and see that the top ads don't show up there.

 

Posted by Stephane Rodriguez at September 18, 2006 07:10

yes this is great google behaviour. And I think it is because the top blue adds are counted as per 1000 impressions or so, and in case the same IP adress tries to asses the search reuult again and again, the top blue adds are omitted so as to save the advertisers' impressions per page

 

Posted by puner at October 1, 2006 13:56

Has anybody tested this yet?

 

Posted by Sergio at November 4, 2006 02:35

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