Google made a big change to the way it displays advertising alongside search results yesterday, one that will likely result in users seeing bigger search ads with more links in them at the top of search pages. That’s because the change incentivizes advertisers to use more of Google’s “ad extensions” that make search ads look bigger and fancier.
The change will also penalize advertisers who aren’t using ad extensions — which is why the change is expected to result in a lot more advertisers using them, and a lot more users seeing them.
A regular Google search ad is pretty simple. It sits in a yellow box at the top of the page, shows the name of the business, its URL, and maybe a short tagline underneath. This, by contrast, is what an ad that uses ad extensions looks like (emphasis added):
Google displays ads based on a formula called “Adrank,” which picks the best ad based on the search entered. Google just made ad extensions part of its Adrank formula, the company said, in such a way that favors ad extensions:
Ad extensions and formats can now influence the position — For more information read the original article here.