(4)
Google has finally made the official switch from blue background color on their top AdWords (sponsored results) to a yellow background color that they have been testing for the past few months.
But not only did they change the color, they made an even bigger change to those top sponsored listings.
Modified what counts as a click in this box to be consistent with what counts as a click for the ads on the right hand side. Instead of clicking anywhere in the box, users now need to click on the link in the top line of an ad in order to be taken to an advertiser's site.
Now a user needs to click on the title of the ad to be taken to the advertiser and not just anywhere inside the ad box. This can impact one's CTR big time. The question is how much?
I will track the thread over the next week or so and let you know any early feedback.
Current threads on the change are at Search Engine Watch Forums & WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Brent
04/06/2007 02:50 pm
I had an "one result box" come up for a query and I was going very quick and accidentially clicked on the paid listing. The yellow was too faint to distinguish. Is this why the CTR increases?
mikey
04/10/2007 05:21 am
interesting... I had the opposite experience. I noticed the yellow box more than I think I did the blue box before. Of course, that could just be because it's new & we've all been looking at the mighty google far too often. And of course, this has nothing to do with earnings in Q2 - it's just coincidence that they made this change at the start of the quarter!
Mariusz Gasiewski
04/10/2007 10:59 am
As I wrote before we have quite funy thing in Poland. The ad in Firefox is yellow, but the same one is IE is blue :) My site is in Polish, but you can see the screenshots for the same queries anywawy at: http://www.ittechnology.us/google-adwords-testy-czy-blad/ I have no idea, why Google did it in this way :)
Anh Wu
04/13/2007 04:54 am
Does anyone know if Google charge AdWord by actual requests, not by clicks. My friend said they charge much more for requests but at the end it maybe cheaper than clicks.