Are you saying the bright "ad" lozenge next to the paid results isn't explicit enough?
And anyways, users don't go out of their way to avoid clicking on ads unless the ads are utter crap. Google's whole business is to make the ads relevant to the search and the user, so who's to say the ad isn't actually a relevant result?
Somewhat off topic... but also, it states 1,010,000,000 results on the first page of this query but if I go to the last page, it comes down to 412 results... I can't believe that there is only 412 insurance related pages on the whole Internet... https://www.google.com/search?q=insurance&num=100&safe=off&s...
It works as expected according to them if they don't expect you to look at all the results, I guess.
Please tell me what link you have at result #500, because I can't see it even if I remove the URL parameters and use the standard 10 results per page...
I cannot go past page 53 when using the URL that you are referring to (they added some results that can be seen, it currently is 532 but it changes pretty often).
But the behavior changed since yesterday... yesterday it would have said "Page 53 of 532 results" and now it says "Page 53 of about 1,010,000,000 results" but most of them still can't be seen...
The lozenge is not enough. I had a user last week who googled "<ispname> email" wanting to get to her email. Instead of clicking the official link a few results down she clicked on of the ad links at the top. This took her to a page which started beeping, playing a virus alert message, and creating JS popups telling her that her computer was infected and she needed to call the phone number on the screen.
>the bright "ad" lozenge next to the paid results isn't explicit enough
Yes, it is not explicit enough. The tiny yellow box is just a noise present on every search page. As any noise it will be ignored. Especially when everything else in these ads tries to look exactly as a valid search result.
Or simply put ads only in the right-hand column that is now entirely populated by ads. "Do you want the results our software comes up with? Then read left. Or do you want the results people pay us to show you? Then read right." This would be an honest business model, and if advertisers had to provide more value to searchers than Google's algorithm with their keyword bids, they might actually do something smart and useful.
Google has more options than just the size of the box: for one thing they could make the box surround the ad (that is a common UX design to show related elements) and put the word "ad" around the entire border or the box, like police tape. That would make it a lot clearer that it was an ad.
No, it's not good enough. It's a bizarre colour that is too similar to the white that they use to write 'Ad' in it. A website with white-on-yellow text would be painful to read.
Also, they don't even bother putting it next to each ad. On the right hand side, there's just one 'Ads' at the top and then everything underneath is an unlabelled paid ad. Why?
Google ads started out quite distinct, but they have gradually made them blend in. They used to have a stand-out background colour, then they had a very pale background, and now there is no obvious 'advert box' at all. Google know that many people are misled into clicking on the adverts, but they don't care because of the $$
It's absolutely not enough. After watching tons of seniors use computers (and having to degunk them), it seems Google's ads in search are the primary malware distribution method on the Internet. Phishing sites are always atop searches for banks, malware links are always atop searches for drivers and software, and normal users see that top ad as the 'first result'.
Users placed their trust in Google, and Google betrayed them.
Are you saying the bright "ad" lozenge next to the paid results isn't explicit enough?
And anyways, users don't go out of their way to avoid clicking on ads unless the ads are utter crap. Google's whole business is to make the ads relevant to the search and the user, so who's to say the ad isn't actually a relevant result?