Google is making search ads more avoidable

Google is Tweaking How will sponsored results appear in search? From now on, any text ads on the search page will be grouped in the “Sponsored Results” section that will appear at the top of the screen. The size of the ads hasn’t changed and Google says there will never be more than four ads in a set. Once you scroll through the section containing ads, you can click a button to hide all sponsored results.

According to Google, “The new design helps people navigate the top of the page more easily.” This is probably because people have become accustomed to automatically searching search results to skip an overview of AI. Google’s announcement even noted that the sponsored tab may appear either above or below the AI-generated summary. What’s another second of scrolling to actually access the information? But lest you scroll too far, Google will also have a “Sponsored Results” section at the bottom of the page that can only be hidden after you see those results.

The new approach is currently being rolled out globally on mobile and desktop platforms.