Google Backtracks on Favicon and Ads Together

[engine]

It seems Google has decided to backtrack on the change it made to the SERPS with the favicon and the ads icon.

There';s been a lot of criticism over the way the SERPs look all the same.

After days of feedback on the design change, Google said Friday it will experiment with other designs that don’t include the icons that make its ads look more like organic search results.

[cnbc.com...]

The Effect of New Google SERPs and Ad Clicks [webmasterworld.com]

[glakes]

@engine

Thanks for the news! And good news it is IMO!

[engine]

Google spinning positive out of this.

[mobile.twitter.com...]

[glakes]

Google spinning positive out of this.

As the saying goes, it's better to try and fail then to fail to try. I hated the look, and I'm glad Google changed it back. Now all Google needs to do to make me happy is return the converting traffic!

[Robert Charlton]

Thanks for the great news. The serps looked hideous... They were hard to look at and bad graphic design... and though I suspected it was a test, every interface change at Google is a test. It's a data-driven company, and they do attempt to leave no tern unstoned.

I often wish it were otherwise, but they probably have initial statistical reasons to support every test they try.

[Wilburforce]

Now all Google needs to do to make me happy is return the converting traffic!

Amen to that!

[RedBar]

For the past couple of years or so Google seems to have favoured websites with lots of graphical content v textual, why is this deemed to have been a "failure"?

DDG has been doing this for ages and in real time and seemingly growing fast!

Then again, I don't drink the G Kool-Aid.

[tangor]

When g rolls out something new I am NOT among first adopters for this very reason ... all too many of these experiments are withdrawn "not too long after roll out"...

[engine]

This was a full roll out by google, and not an experiment. They were testing this a while back, but rolling it out just showed everyone the way they'd like to leave it.

[lucy24]

DDG has been doing this for ages

So does Yandex--but there, too, the result is not a SERP that looks like a solid wall of advertising. (I am very reluctant to conclude from this that DDG and Y pay their designers more than G does.)

[EditorialGuy]

The design I'm seeing right now has the usual green circle with a checkmark next to each organic listing, with "Ad -" in black after the checkmark in ads.

I'd prefer to see greater a greater visual contrast between the ads and the organic listings--perhaps by removing the checkmark from the ads and using an "Ad" icon instead.

[MrSavage]

Suckers. They collected enough data to fill their pockets. They now know very effectively how to affect behavior to increase ad clicks vs. organics. It was obviously such a smashing success that their windfall would be sure to backfire into a PR nightmare. It went too well, likely far beyond their wildest dreams. They can take these substantial findings and use it for other platforms which are more discreet in terms of burying ads to ensure maximum clicks. All this said, of all this things they tried, that was possibly the most absurd and DS looking cosmetic change they've ever attempted. However the intent was to blend "ad" with favicon, nothing more, nothing less. The fact they rolled this out to everyone should say a bit about the leadership, vision or lack thereof. They got caught on this one, that's the only reason it's gone. Let me rephrase that. They got caught before their earnings would indicate the blatant spike in clicks.

[Robert Charlton]

This was a full roll out by google, and not an experiment.

engine, I understand what you're saying and agree with you that Google intended it to be a full roll out... but I believe that Google is a data-driven company and, in a sense, everything they do is a test. Not to say that they're helter skelter, but I think they're more willing to try and fail than many of their users are happy about.

PS: In this case, I should add, they admitted pretty early that the design had problems, probably at no small cost to themselves.

Suckers. They collected enough data to fill their pockets.

I doubt that they were chuckling about this. Data, yes. A person or entity that doesn't learn from it's mistakes is just plain stupid. And if you don't make mistakes, you aren't likely to make any progress.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 12:25 pm (utc) on Jan 29, 2020]

[Dimitri]

Favicon in SERP , a new line on the curriculum vitae of SEO experts.

[Solipsism]

I don't understand why everybody whas against favicon in desktop SERP. It was cool to see our logo and it has brought contrast. Now i just find the SERP really bland, everything is black and i think it will put more clicks on ads...

[Dimitri]

Yes, I like it too. However, like everything, it's getting abused by some...

[Kendo]

It was cool to see our logo

Yes, it made counting through to our listings much easier.

I wonder if its failure was due to sites being down and resulting in broken favicon images? I find that the web can blink on and off like a starry night. One of our sites pulls the images from the poster's web site, and the response times vary all the time.

[Robert Charlton]

A few quick thoughts about what was wrong.

Favicon abuse?... Remember the <blink> tag, now deprecated, and take it from there. ;) This could bring out the worst tendencies in some marketers.

Design problem... A column of randomly colored icons leading off 10 rows of results is inevitably going to be distracting for many users... taking their eyes away from the title, description, and URLs, which, IMO, need to be seen clearly.

Ads, though marked with AD, were not sufficiently diffentiated from the list of results in other ways... font size and background color are two that come to mind.

[lucy24]

Design problem...

Well, that's the thing. You have to design around the icons, with a layout that expects them to be present; you can’t just squeeze favicons into an already-established layout. And once favicons are part of your design, you have to include a generic icon for the ones you aren't able to get from the site, like the generic avatars on discussion boards whose layout presupposes there will be an avatar.

It can work. But you can't fling something out for three days and then yank it again. (I’m reminded of the bus company in a small town I once lived in. They decided to test out Saturday service, and make it permanent if people used it. But evidently the People In Charge really really didn’t want a Saturday service, because they decreed that the new routes could not be advertised, promoted or publicized in any way. You can guess how long this trial lasted.)