Last week, Shameem Adhikarath spotted a sponsored label on top of the "People also consider" box within the Google Search results. I figured it was a bug with ads not loading but then Shay Harel spotted the same thing a week later. Is this another bug or is this a new ad unit?
I did ask Ginny Marvin, Google's Ads Liaison, if this is a bug but I did not hear back by the time I wrote this.
Here is a screenshot of this:
I saw that too, it looks like a bug. The related search options seem to lead to another search rather than directly to any website pic.twitter.com/jkLkcledhH
— Shay Harel (@RangerShay) February 18, 2025
This is an ad unit placed by Google. Ad units are always labeled with Ad or Sponsored. It provides commercial search suggestions related to your search terms.The suggestions are ranked using a number of factors, including relevance to your search terms & likelihood of showing Ads pic.twitter.com/2G2VgU8wLS
— Shameem Adhikarath (@shemiadhikarath) February 13, 2025
Previously, Google displayed only three search terms under "People Also Consider." Now, they display more. @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/VQrD7cKFQz
— Sachin Patel (@SachuPatel53124) February 16, 2025
Weird, no?
Forum discussion at X.
Update: Seems like it is not a bug:
im seeing this in wild , in major of category pic.twitter.com/3QQJ8ecw0P
— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) March 3, 2025
Update 2: This is an experiment, Google confirmed it:
Hi Julie & Glenn, This is currently an experiment. Advertisers do not pay for clicks on these placements. As part of this experiment, we label this unit as "Sponsored" because it links to search results for commercial queries related to the search.
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) April 29, 2025
