-
Has anyone else noticed Google’s latest change to ads? Thoughts on this sneaky move?
Posted by on November 5, 2025 at 11:12 amSo… Google just pulled a wild one 😂
They’ve officially moved on from differentiating sponsored results with colors (we’ve seen the whole rainbow over the years such as yellow, salmon, blue…) and then switched to tags like “Sponsored” / “Ad”… and now?
They basically turned ads into a full-on illusion where paid results look almost identical to organic ones ,the only real difference is a tiny “Sponsored results” label at the top.
I don’t know about you, but my subconscious falls for it every single time. Even though I see the “Sponsored” label, my brain automatically assumes these results earned their spot naturally… not because brands paid to be there.
From a brand perspective? Huge win (previus parragraph) = people more likely to trust (and click) ads if they don't feel like ads.
-
1 Reply
-
I would say it’s harder for us to spot them because we are not used to this at all, the average people just search something and click the first result without even realizing what they clicked anyway.
But I guess people who would actually ignore ads are going to have an hard time the first few months and so there may be more ad click.
Something I also noticed is the AI Overview often not being the top spot anymore if there is an ad.
-
You have a ton of third party plugin crap installed making the page render different. Your screenshot likely isn’t what we see.
-
Yep. And on mobile the ads blend in even more. It even tricked me a few times.
-
It’s a huge win
-
Shady AF
-
Good for advertisers. Bad for searchers. Super misleading. Wouldn’t expect anything less from Google
-
It’s shady, but I believe it’s a win for PPC advertisers
-
Did they stay a different color in your country? For me the color change was made about 10 years ago.
The change the 13th of Oct removed the “Sponsored” tag from each ad which imo makes it MUCH harder to see what is ad and organic. It might help CTR for Ads, but it also makes it much easier to click a fraud (or half fraud) website eg when buying a ticket for something. I guess the behaviour will change over time, but for now I’m not a fan. -
Google change how search results look all the time. This isn’t any different
-
You mean the change google announced was coming?
-
Google trying to improve ad CTRs with crap clicks after AI search engines and social search have continued to depress the Google SERP CTRs and their ad revenue this year.
(Fyi Seer Interactive have a new report out with data backing up the CTR depression across AIO and non-AIO results on Google’s SERPs for informational searches)
-
Top notch innovation. Lol. They never cease to surprise me with new shady tactics.
I can’t differentiate at all between organic and sponsored on mobile
-
Possibly a huge win for PPC advertisers.
Has anyone seen an uplift in clicks and/or conversions?
-
That “sponsored results” label is pretty clear and hard to miss, in my opinion.
-
The top ad spots are effectively interstitials you need to scroll past now.
Log in to reply.