Search Sense

I have just noticed Google.co.uk is testing green backgrounds above and below the search results. This test seems to be happening only on a very limited number of datacentres. I managed to reproduce this on 66.249.93.99 (+2).

It looks like Google is trying out something new again and is testing it only locally. They have always been tweaking the layout and colours to make the Search Engine Landing Pages (SERPs) clearer and easier to use. In the past few years they have tested and implemented different ideas. I have always been under the impression the main 2 reasons were to improve the user experience and generate more visibility for the paid ads.

At first sight I thought the green backgrounds looked ugly and even tacky. However on a second look with my Search Engine Marketing head on, the premium placement ads stand out significantly more. Also my eyes are constantly dragged towards the top green bar which means I’m focusing on the premium listings and not lower listed organic results. As a result I feel more likely to click on the top results - paid and natural as well. If there are no premium ads (screen shot 1) I am tempted to click either on the first natural listing or the first AdWords ad on the right.

(click the images twice to view)

A SERP with three premium listings has a similar effect. My eyes are constantly coming back to the green bar and therefore all the top ads attract more attention.

Even though I personally do not like the green backgrounds I believe Google have come up with a design which will improve the click through rate for the premium and top organic listings.

I have also noticed that Google have added green backgrounds for premium ads on Google Directory SERPs but since I never use this I can’t tell how long this has been in place. This directory design seems to be rolled out to all datacentres. Unlike the SERP design mentioned previously I seem to be somewhat blind to the premium paid results. I think this is because the green backgrounds seem to blend with one another unlike the green/yellow combination which is much more compelling.

Google.com has recently been reported to be testing nearly white background for the premium placement AdWords ads. Rustybrick comments on Google Blending Ads More Into Organic Results.

As mentioned in Joe’s previous blog post, Google last week announced changes to its pay-per-click trademark policy which for the first time will allow any company to buy keywords associated with a rival’s brand name.

We’ve had a great deal of interest from our clients and industry journalists, who are keen to understand the implications and effect of Google’s plans to allow any company to bid on competitor brand names.

So we asked Paul Doleman, our CTO and Head of Paid Search, to give his advice and opinion on:

• What has happened and why
• Google’s motivation behind the policy change
• How it might affect the market and businesses
• The likely impact to brand owners

Find out what Paul has to say…(advise using your headphones)

The policy comes into effect in May, ahead of which the debate will no doubt continue. For example, Travolution discussed the impact to travel brands in an article posted yesterday.

Google have just announced changes to their trademark policy in UK & Ireland that will bring it in line with US & Canada. This basically means that from 5th May, Google will no longer stop advertisers bidding on the registered trademarks of their competitors. All keywords suspended in your account due to trademark violation will be activated on that day. Any trademark complaints received by today will be processed in the usual way but any received after today will only be processed for ad copy and not keywords. As far as I am aware, Google will still stop people using your trademarks in Ads, provided you have registered the trademark properly. The official Google blurb can be found here

http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=92877&hl=en_US

Personally, I think this has been on the cards for a long time and have sensed a big shift in Adwords account managers attitude towards trademarks throughout last year. Although this change it makes the job of the Paid Search agency harder, I think it’s fair enough and I am quite pleased that Google are recognising that it’s not necessarily their job to enforce trademark policy. In the travel sector, I think this could work to an advertiser’s advantage quite well, as there are many hotel chains with high search volume featured travel operators’ sites that one simply couldn’t bid on before. In finance, I think it will be less advantageous, as cheap, good-converting brand traffic will suddenly be open to competition by aggregators who will push bid prices up. In retail, I think both scenarios will be relevant, as retailers tend to promote their own brand as well as sell other high-profile brands. However, a lot of retailers will already have had permission to bid on their best selling products’ brand terms so it may lean towards the less advantageous end.

’speling games online’ >200 searches per month

As an agency with its roots in search, we are very aware of the capabilities of the major engines across all aspects of search but also their growing offerings in display. In fact, we have tremendous success by buying on a CPC basis through Google for our clients, especially in North America.

There is an ongoing discussion within the industry and within our agency as to the direction media buying will take.

On one hand, the growth of Google et al in this sector is likely to increase CPC and even CPA traffic, something that will happen exponentially with the acquisition of DoubleClick and the launch of Google Ad Manager.

However, from another perspective, ‘good’ publishers are in a position of strength and can choose the way in which they sell the first 60-80% of their inventory. What they do with the remaining 20-40% is up to them, but we don’t necessarily want to focus on buying this remnant inventory anyway.

Last week though a major publisher took a big step in one of these directions; ESPN.com has announced it is cancelling its arrangements with its media house and also the ad networks it does business with. Instead they are moving more to a direct model selling what is likely to be more premium custom packages.

Google et al will continue to grow in this sector, but if publishers like this decide not to fuel the ad networks growth then we won’t be seeing an entire CPC marketplace anytime soon.

And it makes sense for publishers to do this. They own the product and if ad networks continue to grow they will hold too much of the power and could lower the overall effective CPM rate that a publisher can achieve.