With a clearer label and the ability to hide sponsored results, Google gives users more control over ads in the search engine.
Ads, or ‘sponsored search results’, have become increasingly prominent in Google’s search engine over the years. In many searches, they even appear at the top of the results. The reason for this is purely economic: ads are still the main source of income for the Google empire.
However, Google now seems to want to change that. Google is giving its search engine a visual update that would make ads less dominant in search results. First and foremost, they will receive a much clearer label and will be grouped to distinguish them from other web pages. You will also have the option to collapse and hide the ad overview, as shown in the video shared by Google below.
False Control
This update gives you as a user at least a sense of control that you can decide whether or not you want to see ads in your search results. But don’t think that Google is biting the hand that feeds it. Google ensures that ads still receive the visibility they pay for.
For example, you can only hide ads after you have seen them once, and you need to perform this action again for each search query. Moreover, sponsored results still easily find their way into the non-removable AI overview, where the distinction from non-paying search results is much less clear. It is more of a balancing act by Google to reconcile the wishes of web users and advertisers.
read also
European Commission Fines Google Nearly Three Billion Euros
Do you still want to see the cleanest possible search results in Google, without ads and AI overviews? With Google’s ‘web filter’, you only see aggregated links, without any extra fuss. Here we explain how to apply this simple trick.