Google AdWords Adds More Clutter
AdWords keeps changing things up – that is, adding more and more “stuff” to their ad results. I’m not so sure it’s adding much value at this point. Maybe I’m stuck in a minimalist’s point of view, but I miss when ads looked just like ads with nothing else attached to them.
Take a look at this AdWords ad that appeared on a search result page. The top ad was displayed while I was logged into my Google account, and the bottom one, when I had logged out and repeated the same search query:
The top ad is a typical AdWords unit, along with a trailing URL pointing to a landing page (top image), WITH an icon to SEMrush.com providing statistics on the link, and yet another icon pointing to Google Keyword Tool. My guess is that the additional link pointing to “../landing/gen_trial.htm” is a Google AdWords Site Link, although I could be wrong.
The puzzling part is why an icon for SEMrush and Google Keyword Tool appeared. The SEMrush icon looks up the landing page’s top 5 keyword rankings. The Keyword Tool icon simply takes you to the service’s home page. It’s not pre-loaded with a query string. Perhaps the new AdWords algorithm figured that I could look up the landing page’s keywords in SEMrush, then do my own keyword research in Google Keyword Tool.
Underneath it is the same ad that appears when I’m not logged into my Google account. It’s just a plain AdWords ad.
My question is if these icons appear because I am, in fact, a visitor of SEMrush. Had it noticed a cookie? If not, then why would it show these icons? If you’re not an internet marketer, SEMrush and Google Keyword Tool are of no value to you. On that note, I decided to delete the cookie for SEMrush, then re-load the page and see if that icon still appeared:
When re-loading the page, neither icon was there anymore. Perhaps it was working off cookies…or, it could just be that the ad only shows those icons X amount of times per day…who knows!
On the flip side to the icon debacle, it’s an annoyance to the advertiser. I sure don’t want anyone looking up the top 5 keywords that I rank for, on one of the pay-per-click ads I’m running!
