Google Responds to Desktop Search Changes’ Criticism

An official statement has been issued by Google in response to the broad criticism in the desktop search results’ recent changes.

Recently, the look of paid and organic search results on desktop was updated by Google. The biggest changes that were easily noticed include favicons to the side of desktop search results and “Ad” in plain black bold letters as a label next to the results that are paid search.

The new version is below:

And you can see the difference in the old one below:

Google is making a claim that the new label “Ad” is more prominent, but a lot of people would argue (and have already done so) that it makes it much harder to distinguish paid results from organic results.

The Response of Google

With a large amount of feedback they have received, Google has stated that they will start to experiment with new placement for favicons.

The experiment is said to last a few weeks. During this, some users will see the favicons in different placements while others will not see favicons at all.

Here is the full statement made by Google about the situation:

“We’re dedicated to improving the desktop experience for Search, and as part of our efforts we rolled out a new design last week, mirroring the design that we’ve had for many months on mobile. The design has been well received by users on mobile screens, as it helps people more quickly see where information is coming from and they can see a prominent bolded ad label at the top. Web publishers have also told us they like having their brand iconography on the search results page. While early tests for desktop were positive, we are always incorporating feedback from our users. We are experimenting with a change to the current desktop favicons, and will continue to iterate on the design over time.”

Keep in mind that there is nothing about changing the “more prominent” Ad label that is bold and black. The new label will presumably remain the same for the foreseeable future.

Here at YuzzBuzz, we like to keep up with the news around the digital marketing industry. As a full-service digital marketing agency, we focus especially around the news for Google, as it is such a prominent force in digital marketing. We offer both SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) services to improve your organic and paid results on Google. Give us a call today!