Google ads on top at Google groups

East has gone North

[vitaplease]

I have seen ads appearing in Google groups but not in this way on top.
(check the Googleblog for an example)

Do a search for "french" for example and click on "view this article only"

By the way I see differences for the adds appearing on normal Google search and Google group search. (doing a search for a very competitive drug for example).

Is this an option you can choose?

[Shakil]

Have just checked on our ads in the UK, looking at:

Search = our ads
Directory = our ads + plus other ads
Groups = adword ads but showing at the top

This gave me the excuse to phone my lovely contact at Google UK, who says Google are trying different tactics for Directory and Groups, and Geo-Targeting is not 100%.

so in other words, its all under control, and Google are analysing traffic levels to see what sort of inventory etc etc is coming from Groups and Directory.

VitaPlease, thanks for raising this.

Shak

[ciml]

Is anyone able to tell when people are coming from Groups?

I guess that for some types of products and services it's a good demographic.

[JayC]

Is anyone able to tell when people are coming from Groups?

Yep. The url in the referrer string begins with "http://groups.google.com/groups"

[ciml]

Thanks JayC, that's good.

Anyone compared yet?

[instand1]

"The url in the referrer string begins with "http://groups.google.com/groups" -"

Similar question, please:
Does anyone know the difference (in the log-files) between the referrer string of an "editorial" click and a click on a google adwords on the same results page?

[webdiversity]

On certain analytic programs you can drill into the report created on initial referrers to see the actual newsgroup/article that referred and the search string used and like vitaplease have noticed ads appearing at the top.

With the advent of Google News I think a whole new group of people will start to use groups as a way of searching for information. Buying that back catalogue had to be a great move on Google's part.

In response to instand1, I don't think there is any difference shown between a paid and an unpaid visitor on a log file, but I might be wrong. We just use a tracking tool to track the Adword clicks and take the total from their away from the overall total to give a grand total.