On Friday, Google began to show these massive pop up, overlay ads, on top of the Google Search results, for when you search for your business and are logged into your Google Business Profile account. The ad takes up a lot of the screen, blocks access to the search results page (and managing your Google Business Profile) and asks you to spend money with Google Ads with a Google Ads credit promotion.
Zanet Design notified me on X about this on Friday and I was able to replicate this myself. At first, I thought that maybe this was some sort of button he clicked on or something he triggered. But no, I was able to see this myself by just Googling my business name [rustybrick]. This would come up and I'd have to close it out to get to manage my Google Business Profile.
Here is a screenshot of this:
It doesn't show up again after you refresh but it does the first time you try it. As Zanet wrote, "Google is now shamelessly pushing huge ADVERTS themselves!"
I do not like this at all - sorry Google.
Forum discussion at X.
