(3)
Google announced the AdWords ads may now officially show at the bottom of the search results, if they are not shown on the right hand side.
Google has tested this in the past, most recently last month and also in 2010, 2008 and 2005.
Google said:
We dynamically optimize each search page, including its ads, to provide the best experience for our users.In many cases, we have found that displaying ads below search results fits better into the user's flow as they scan the page from top to bottom. On average, this placement performed better than side ads in terms of click-through rate in our tests.
That being said, now many are noticing that the search box at the bottom of the page is missing. I believe it was missing since Google Instant launched years ago but maybe it came back since then?
A WebmasterWorld thread has one user explaining why he thinks the search box is missing, "Gonna be ads now on the bottom of the search! Can't distract people with search boxes on a search engine!"
Again, I think it was missing since Instant - not sure why people are taking notice of it now.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Google Web Search Help.
Comments:
John
11/04/2011 05:47 pm
They also recently removed "Advanced Search" link from the top of page. Users now have to scroll to the bottom if they want to use advanced search features. Guess Google doesn't want to encourage intelligent searchers. After all they may actually find what they are looking for, and "not" click on the ads. At the rate this is going Google is turning into a Made for AdSense (MFA) site.
Paul Mendelson
11/07/2011 08:30 pm
Instant was disabled the bottom search bar would magically reappear. Now it's gone even with Instant disabled.
TG2
11/10/2011 02:30 pm
So I finally switched to using Firefox as my main browser ... I liked IE ... and I still use it for one or two sites because of minor issues with FF on those sites.. but do you know what really caused me to use FF? That god damned black bar ... IE has no way to remove it ... I had to install Stylish, then grab a style editor to have *IT* turn that bar to a non-obtrusive plain white color. Its like with all of these changes ... google doesn't get it. User choice is gone ... I have no problem with people that *like* the instant search .. but *I* do not .. let me have the choice *not* to use it. Google finally listened on that point .. but with the thousands of posts about the black bar .. even when *I* saw the black bar the first time I thought something had gone wrong with my PC ... that my video had been corrupted because I thought it was the menu bar I was seeing (a typical driver fault that still haunts us to this day) and I took steps not realizing those asses at google changed something ... So why doesn't google listen? Why doesn't google put these things in that f**king cog wheel they have up there so that like Instant ... a user can turn off X feature, Y addition ... sped up my search? HARDLY ... when I got to the bottom of the search if I had realized that not enough of the FIRST page's results were in the vein I had intended I would have modified my search.. NOT STARTED A NEW ONE.. MODIFIED ... And then google forced the "previews" on us.. now the idiots out there repeat the google mantra "don't click on it" ... then google thought they'd out think those idiots like myself that REFUSED to click to see previews, and then by just having our mouse "hover" in the wrong spot we were again treated to f**king previews! In steps FF again with adblock plus where we had to add some filters to block googles vsb*whatevers! EVERY TIME google makes one of these f**king stupid changes all they do is alienate users even more.. so now I've got to find another stylish update to have it change the black bar to white, remove the google previews, AND RETURN the bottom search box..?? NO.. I think its time I seriously get another search engine or find a portal that will remove googles lunacy for me so that I can search the way *I* want to ... rather than the way some f**king moron at google thinks is best.. Good going google.. you've exposed your attitude yet again.. that the users using the product don't matter ... that only what *google* thinks is right ... and the rest of us can take it or leave it.. Good Bye Google. GOOGLE LISTEN TO YOUR USERS ... see them turning away.