Google has just made a significant change to the layout of Google Ads in their search results. It is now extremely difficult to differentiate between advertisements and organic results.

The only way now to distinguish between ads and search results is a small black-and-white “Ad” icon next to the former. This is a striking change, considering up until 2013 Google made a very clear distinction between ads and search results. Google initially showed its ads with an entirely different background color, and after this Google continued to use unique colors so that users could easily distinguish between the two.

Google has stated that the recent changes were in order to “better guide users through the information available on the web”. The changes were also reasoned to make their branding clearer and “help [users] better understand where the information is coming from”, which seems in contradiction to the changes that have been made.

Sundeep Jain, Director of Product Management for Search Ads, further justified these changes by saying that a simpler design “makes it easier for users to digest information”, according to Search Engine Land. He also added that the reduction of colours used brings more harmony to the layout.

It is difficult to reconcile these statements, considering the ease of viewing ads before, and given Digiday have revealed data showing that these changes may already be causing people to click on more ads. Which is arguably Google’s true intention. Another digital marketing agency also showed that click-through rates have since increased for some search ads on desktop, and mobile click-through rates increased from 17-18% in 2019, following similar changes to Google’s search layout on mobile.

These changes remind us that Google is fundamentally an ads business. Google’s parent company Alphabet made nearly $34 billion from Google advertising, out of a total revenue of $40 billion in the third quarter of 2019 alone. For businesses at that sort of scale, small changes in ad click-through rates could end up having a huge effect on their revenue – a micro increase at a macro level could be extremely profitable.