Don’t freak out if you no longer see ads on the right-hand side of Google Search results, that’s because Google is changing the way it displays ads on desktop searches. From now on ads will only be shown at the top and bottom of the search results page. Previously the company used to display ads on the top, bottom and right-hand side of the search results based on a query. Following this change, the right sidebar is now free for Google’s Product Listing Ads.
Google is now going to show 4 ads at the top of the search results as opposed to showing them on the right-hand side of the results. The company first started testing 4 ads at the top of results back in December last year.
“We’ve been testing this layout for a long time, so some people might see it on a very small number of commercial queries. We’ll continue to make tweaks, but this is designed for highly commercial queries where the layout is able to provide more relevant results for people searching and better performance for advertisers,” a Google spokesperson said confirming the changes.
The company has also confirmed that this change is global and that it applies to all languages supported on Google Search. It’s expected this change will be rolled out to all Google Search users by February 22nd.
Filed in . Read more about Google and Google Search.