Google Tests Video Ads in Search Results

The New York Times is reporting that Google has begun testing video ads for Adsense/Adwords on their search pages.

Marissa Mayer, Google’s  VP of search products and user experience, said in an interview that the change reflects the evolution of the Google SERPs. We all know about last year’s change with Google introducing universal search whereby videos, images, news, etc…  are now included within the organic search results on Google’s pages.

“The big insight of Google wasn’t text ads; it was that the ads should be conducive to the format,” Ms. Mayer said. “We were doing text-based search that was all textual. Visual ads don’t work in that format.”

“We don’t want all sorts of video and banner ads all over the site all the time,” Ms. Mayer said. “People who advertise a movie want to show a trailer. Why shouldn’t they have the same format we use for search results and have a little plus box that says watch the trailer?”

According to Hansell’s Bits Blog, Google will be introducing these video ads with a small “plus sign” icon next to search results that contain a video result.

About the Author - Mark R Robertson
Mark Robertson is the Founder and Creator of ReelSEO.com. Mark has had extensive experience in online marketing, particularly in Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Local Search, Video Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can follow Mark on Twitter @markrrobertson

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