Google Plans to Remove Ads From Right Side of Desktop Search Results

After a long time testing the change, Google has officially confirmed they will be removing ads from the right side of desktop search results, and will only place ads at the top and or bottom of the page. Google also stated that for “highly commercial queries” they may display an additional ad which will appear above search results with four listings.These new changes are the result of a long running test that started almost 6 years ago back in 2010 and is something that has been adjusted frequently during the testing. Over the last year Google users have been reporting more frequently that they were seeing only top ads being display in search results as Google began slowly phasing in the change.

Google has confirmed that this change is now being implemented globally to all searches in every language. Ads will no longer be displayed on the right hand side of search results with a couple of exceptions. Product Listing Ads, will continue to be displayed to either the right hand side or above search results along with ads in the knowledge panel.

Here’s Google’s official statement on the new changes:

“We’ve been testing this layout for a long time, so some people might see it on a very small number of commercial queries. We’ll continue to make tweaks, but this is designed for highly commercial queries where the layout is able to provide more relevant results for people searching and better performance for advertisers.”

To clarify, the elimination of right-side ads impacts all desktop searches worldwide; the addition of the fourth ad above search results will happen for “highly commercial queries.” This would involve searches like “hotels in New York City” or “car insurance” and the like.

By removing the right hand side ads from appearing on desktop searches, search results across mobile and desktop will now be very similar with Google’s mobile search results typically displaying 2-3 ads on top of their search results.