• by Janel Landis , Casey Wilson , May 4, 2007

After years of exhibiting the blue highlighted sponsored listings at the top of search engine results pages, Google has once again changed the search engine marketing landscape with the end user in mind. Google searchers may or may not have noticed a slight change in their search results the week of March 26, but advertisers did -- and the verdict is in. Google's decision to change the background color for sponsored links from blue to yellow, as well as the clickability of these ads, has yielded positive results for both advertisers and Google users.

Since clicks are the basis for media cost, let's focus on this clickabilty. Prior to this change, users may have inadvertently clicked on sponsored listings, as the entire blue box at the top of the page was clickable. With the change in color and clickability, a user must now actually click on the headline of the ad to register a click. The intent was to improve the user's experience on Google as well as the advertisers' conversion rates and ROI performance.

Limiting an ad's clickability to the headline, and its effect on click-through rates, created some concern among advertisers and agencies. Skeptics thought this change might decrease the click-through rate and subsequently negatively impact the infamous Google Quality Score that determines how much advertisers pay for each click.

A change of this magnitude exemplifies Google's commitment to users to the utmost degree. This change may inevitably result in less clicks on sponsored links, which means less revenue for Google, proving Google has not even prioritized itself above the end user.

Google's success is largely attributed to its continuous effort to prioritize end users and their experience, above revenue opportunities with advertisers and agencies. This commitment to the public has resulted in a greater than 60% market share and has earned Google the proverbial 800-pound gorilla tag.

After some initial head scratching, from an agency/advertiser perspective, the clickability and color change is welcomed. Not only have accidental clicks been weeded out, but the volume of traffic has not declined. Since the change, we've reported an overall 31% increase in conversion rates, with steady costs-per-click and click-through rates. We think much of this is attributable to the clickability change. As for the color change, we have to think that Google had its reasons -- and they seem to be in our favor.

Preliminary results show these changes are a win-win scenario. Google implemented these changes with two objectives in mind: 1) Create a better user experience and 2) Improve the conversion rate and ROI for AdWords advertisers. Great work, Google, thanks for the change!