AdWords Takes over Top of SERPS for "Highly Commercial Queries"
Google has made a drastic change in the Desktop search results page for 'highly commercial queries' by removing the paid results from the right hand side and placing them above the organic results. Google has gone on to confirm that they will continue to show Google shopping results, as well as ads within Knowledge Panels, on the right side when appropriate. And, in some cases, they've even added a 4th paid position to the top of the page like the example you see below:
This change has been calculated to affect roughly 7.3% of search queries since it only applies to highly commercial desktop searches...for now. As you can imagine, this change was made to boost AdWord's profits and has people worried. No one wants to see the organic results pushed below the fold to make more room for paid listings.
However, before you get too worried - we recommend taking a minute and searching for your keywords to look at those specific search results pages. As you will soon notice, the layouts of the different search results pages are as hugely varied as they have always been. We could show you a different lay out for every one of the following searches, but then this update would be choke full of images:
Treadmill desks - no side ads - Google shopping results at top - three top paid positions followed by organic results.
House cleaning services - no side ads - three top paid positions followed by maps results - then organic results.
Nike shoes for sale - Google shopping results on side - two top paid positions followed by organic results.
Don't get us wrong, this changes things for both AdWords advertisers and SEOs. So far it's not completely clear exactly how things will change but this is what we know right now.
AdWords
There are a lot of users who are thrilled to have the less desirable side bar paid positions gone. It makes their CPC data and reporting far more accurate. However, there are those who believe that this reduced amount of total available listings (a drop from 11 to 7 at max) will...
