You thought Google was sneaky with their ad or sponsored labels. Microsoft has a history of being super sneaky with their ad labels in Bing Search. Here is a new example of Bing hiding the small ad label right after the domain name, normally it shows up in the front section of the ad, which is also hard to see, but not as hard as this.
Here is a screenshot of this test from Frank Sandtmann who posted about this on Mastodon and wrote, "Bing is at it again: another test of a barely visible ad label. This time they place it right behind the domain name. An unusual position combined with a light gray color that will most likely cause many people to mistake it for an organic result. Shady."
Here is what I see:
I also see the "sponsored" variation which is much better:
This is not as bad as some previous tests, like some of the most invisible ad labels I've seen before. And those image search ad labels.
I will credit Bing here, Shameem Adhikarath spotted Bing testing a line separator between a search ad and organic result:
Again, if Google did this, this would cause such a stir and rightfully so.
Forum discussion at Mastodon.
