It is safe to say that banner ads can be pretty intrusive, but unfortunately that is just one of the ways websites survive, through these banner ads. In fact Google had recently attempted at introducing gigantic banner ads of their own on their search results page.
As you can see in the image above, a Google search for “southwest airlines” will result in a giant Southwest Airlines banner splashed across the top of the page. Naturally this is great for advertisers who want to ensure they get the top view and pushing other results further down the page, but thankfully that experiment has come to an end.
This was confirmed by Google to the folks at VentureBeat that these banner ads are no longer in use. In fact during the SXSW event, Google’s head of search, Amit Singhal, revealed that the recent changes that Google users are seeing are currently part of an experiment to test out different looks and fonts for the website.
Just like Facebook, Google routinely runs these these tests and experiment from time to time to gauge user reactions and how these new features are being used and if they are welcome changes, or changes that Google should probably do away with.
What do you guys think? Are you happy that this banner experiment is one that Google is doing away with? Or were you perfectly fine with it as long as it didn’t mess up your search results?
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