Google is always adding new features to improve the site for both advertisers and users. This week Google is testing a new format for the ads that appear on Google Images search results. Improvements were made to the original format last year, but now it appears that the search engine are aiming to offer a sleeker and more aesthetically pleasing experience in Google Image Search.
I’ve always found Bing Image Search to be superior because it had better filters, many of which Google adopted. However, Google has made great strides in surpassing other image search engines, especially for ecommerce advertizing.
The ads make the most sense for e-commerce sites and correspond with Google’s increasing push into comparison shopping on the search engine. Frequent online shoppers and Google users will have noticed that when they search for a product, Google shows images of the product and prices for a variety of sites in the search results.
The new ads are different than the image ads that Google introduced in July, which show up only when people search Google Images, and are tied to keywords and paid for on a cost-per-click basis like traditional Google search ads.
In other recent Google changes, via SearchEngineland, new changes for online advertisers in the form of image search ads: 7 Is The New 10? Google Showing Fewer Results & More From Same Domain
It seems that Google is tying the new display format to whether “sitelinks” appear with listings. Wrote Meyers:
You’ll notice two things right away: (1) “PC Tools” is a brand, and (2) the #1 result has expanded site-links. Not every SERP affected appears to be branded, though – a search for “krill” (the #1 result is a Wikipedia entry for the crustacean) also returns 7 results, for example.
It’s similar to what member Buddhu at WebmasterWorld noted in a forum discussion on the topic last week (again, on August 16):
Not sure how much the brand/generic ambiguity plays a part is at all, but certainly every example I’ve seen is an exact domain match that brings up sitelinks.
In other words, if your search term is a domain match and the domain’s result displays sitelinks, then only 7 results are shown.
Right now, Google has a specific form of image search ad combining a thumbnail with text and largely resembles a pay per click ad. Google is changing all that with smaller design that looks less out of place among the search results. This week’s test format integrates the ad alongside the search results so you only see the thumbnail, with the word ad and a link to the site layered onto the image.
This format is certainly more aesthetically pleasing, however it is difficult to determine whether it not it would be successful and there is a serious risk that many users could bypass an ad, without even realizing it’s an ad.
When Google announced that they would be introducing ads to the Google Image Search, there was much speculation about how the company would implement these in their efforts to monetize the image search system. This took place in 2008 and in the 4 years that have passed since, the Google Image Search ads have undergone a number of changes.
The first incarnation of ads on Image Search were fairly simple and the minimal banners featured only text and a link. Although fairly unexciting, it was predicted that monetizing Google Image Search would raise an additional $200 million for the search engine. Considering this it is easy to understand why Google were so eager to launch ads in image search results and this could explain the simplicity of the original version.
Google has been testing the new ads for a year with 800 advertisers, including Campmor.com and Diapers.com
These shopping sites bid on thousands of keywords, but they have even more products. For example, for a single stroller, Diapers.com might need to bid on keywords like stroller, baby gifts, and the brand name. Now, they give their product feed to Google, and Google automatically matches ads to searches.
If you’re a Google AdWords advertiser you may have dabbled with Google Image Ads.
If you’re unfamiliar with the process, you basically upload your own banner, (or indeed build one yourself through Google’s Display Ad Builder) and then either allow Google to place your Banners alongside relevant content (contextual Auto Placements) or, you select from a list the websites you’d like your banner to appear on (Managed Placements).
Using the Google Image Search is a neat and relatively inexpensive form of ‘media buying’. Along with the SalesWarp Storefront Managing System, you can integrate marketing, inventory and store management seamlessly into any ad campaign. The results in our clients’ analytics accounts are proof of that.
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