Recently Google launched their new preview function which allows you to over over a magnifying glass and view a thumbnail of a website. Ok, this is a good idea (even if it has been done before), but aren’t Google forgetting something? Have you spotted it yet? Yes, the new function covers the Pay Per Click ads.
For those who don’t notice the Paid ads on the right handside of Google, this is where advertisers can place an ad attributed to the keyword which you type in and as the name suggest, they pay to do it. This service is the largest source of Google’s income, around $13.77 billion so far in 2010. Yes, that is a very big number, so it maybe a surprise to you that Google have decided the best thing to do is to cover them up.
To put this into context, can you image watching the television, the adverts come on, and the television company covers all of them up with a preview of which programme is on next. It wouldn’t happen, would it?
I hope Google have a plan with this, it has the potential to lose them, us and our clients a lot of money.
Massive Google Fail I think.
hmmmm. I played around the with the Google Preview Tool last week when I first came across it. To be honest, I didn’t notice at first that it covers up the PPC ads, but on closer look, it does now appear that Google have shot themselves in the foot slightly. It definitely seems to take the emphasis away from the right hand side of the screen. Will be interesting to see what Google go from here…