Yesterday Google started showing AdWords ads differently on the search results page. It stopped showing the ads on the right hand side of the results page where previously up to 7 ads were shown. This part of the page is now reserved for structured data including articles from Wikipedia, facts from the knowledge graph and information about companies.
There is a change on top ads, however. Until this week up to 3 ads were shown above the organic results. This weeks update changed this so up to four ads are shown above the organic results, which makes organic results less visible to the user.
All together, the results page can now show up to 7 ads. Before the update the number of ads on every page was up to 11.
What does that mean for the advertisers? Will the prices of CPC skyrocket because there’s less ad spots available? Will the visitors just skip the top ads because they have to scroll to get to the organic results anyway? The time will give us answers to these questions.
How does the change affect you? Share your thoughts!