Google Tests Image Ads for Top Search Results

Back in 2010, Google launched a feature that allowed local businesses to add yellow markers to the map and promote their websites. Tags were actually ads that were placed inside local search results. It was a weird way to mix organic search results with ads and this feature was discontinued in 2011.



Now Google tests a similar feature for web search results. Instead of adding links and markers, advertisers can add huge banners above their search listings, but only for navigational searches. "The banners allow brands to take over the ad space on branded search queries and essentially present a branded search results experience," reports Search Engine Land. "The team at Synrgy has learned from a source at Google that the brand image experiment is live with about 30 advertisers, including Crate & Barrel and Virgin America. The test is showing for less than 5 percent of search queries," mentions Barry Schwartz. Basically, instead of displaying ads for competitors, Google shows a huge banner for the top search result.

"We're currently running a very limited, US-only test, in which advertisers can include an image as part of the search ads that show in response to certain branded queries. Advertisers have long been able to add informative visual elements to their search ads, with features like Media Ads, Product Listing Ads and Image Extensions," explained Google.



Well, that's not exactly true. The images are added to the search results, not to the search ads. Even though the top search result and the corresponding sitelinks are grouped with the image ad and the entire section is labeled "sponsored", this is actually the top search result.



The truth is that Google has continually added features from the organic search results to the search ads and Google has also started to mix search results with ads. For example, Google Shopping results are now ads, since companies need to pay to be included in the list of results. Booking links from flights search and hotel search are sponsored links.

For some searches, Google shows so many ads that you have to scroll to find some actual search results. Here's a screenshot of a Google search page for [tablet]: I highlighted the only organic result you can see without scrolling down.

Creative Sound Blaster Tactic 3D Sigma

Creative’s Tactic 3D lineup has proved itself to be quite capable at handling everyday computing tasks and is especially suited for bass-heads. The 3D Sigma is the mid-range entrant in the series and proves to be a solid performer. This is the younger brother of the Tactic 3D Omega, and only misses out on the latter’s wireless module and as a result, can be had for about half the price. Design and build The headset is entirely made of plastic, but despite that, feels sturdy enough [...]

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Accenture, Wipro and Infosys among most sought after employers in India: LinkedIn

Accenture has retained the top spot on the list of 20 most sought after employers in India for the second time, according to the 'most InDemand employer brand' list compiled by professional networking site LinkedIn. This is the second year in a row Accenture has retained its number one spot, the professional networking site said. IT majors, Wipro and Infosys are ranked second and third according to the list. The top 10 companies in the list are IBM (4th), Hewlett Packard (5th), Oracle (6th), Ta [...]

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Micromax Canvas Turbo smartphone: An Overview

Micromax has created quite the hype around the Micromax Canvas Turbo and even brought in the Wolverine to grab our attention. That said, is the product any good or is it merely propped up a great marketing campaign? That question will be answered when we get the smartphone in for review, but here, let's take a look and see how the device compares to the competition in terms of the specifications and the features on offer. Starting off with the specifications of the Canvas Turbo, the device has [...]

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Yahoo NewsON to be available on Samsung Smart TVs

Yahoo NewsON will bring local news articles, videos and weather reports to Samsung Smart TV users with the click of a remote. The NewsOn Panel is available in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the middle East. Users will be able to click on the information through the NewsOn information panel and get instant information about current events. The NewsON main screen offers a collage of photos and headlines from Yahoo news stories with a snapshot of current weather conditions for local cities. To ac [...]

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Google+ is still irrelevant to a majority of users: Poll

Google may have doubled down on its home brewn social network but most active Internet users are yet to find anything redeeming in Google+. According to a poll on our site and newsletters that attracted 1,156 responses, more than half of the respondents stated that they “rarely use Google+ and consider Twitter and/or Facebook to be much more important,” while almost 25% said that although they thought that “Google+ has potential and (they) may start using it in the future&rdquo [...]

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LinkedIn launches 'Intro', shows profiles in your iPhone Mail app

LinkedIn Intro is an e-mail plug-in for iOS users that pulls LinkedIn profile information into e-mails to give a complete professional history, location, schooling of anyone who sends you a message. LinkedIn Intro skims different web-based data from social networks and other sources to create on-the-fly profiles of the people who email you. You can have access to complete information about the person. The sender’s job title appears front-and-center in e-mails on a user’s iPhone or i [...]

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RailYatri introduces new travel information and advisory alerting platform

RailYatri.in has launched National RailYatri Alert Service (NRAS), which is claimed to be the country's first travel information & advisory alerting platform. NRAS, RailYatri.in, explains uses customised algorithm to determine the impact of different types of major travel related announcements (new special trains, cancellations, delays, new stoppages, etc.), incidents (accidents, planned blockages, etc.) and events (historical, current, and upcoming) at a local station or train level. The [...]

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Google updates Offers self-service tool for businesses

Google has introduced an update to its Google Offers self-service tool for businesses, improving the speed of ad creation and adding support for Google Maps. The update is expected to be rolled out within the next week. According to Google, the update allows businesses create their posts “in minutes” and publish them to customers across Google products. “Simply choose the type of offer you’d like to create and assign a budget. Unlike traditional promotions or coupons, G [...]

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LG G Pro Lite available online for Rs. 18,300

LG recently announced the G Pro Lite and the smartphone is now available to users via Snapdeal.com. The smartphone is priced at Rs. 18,300. As of writing this article, the smartphone isn’t available on other online shopping portals such as flipkart or infbeam. Coming to the specifications of the LG G Pro Lite, it has a dual-core MediaTek MT6577 chipset with the processor clocked at 1GHz. It also houses 1GB of RAM. The 5.5-inch display has a 960x540 pixel resolution. It sports 8GB built-in [...]

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TRAI's recommendations on 800 MHz unfair and discriminatory: SSTL

Sistema Shyam Tele-Services Ltd (SSTL), which operates in the country under the brand name MTS India, has criticised the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on the 800 MHz spectrum band, used by CDMA operators. “SSTL has consistently maintained that it does not agree with the recommendations of TRAI specific to the 800 MHz spectrum band. The said recommendations have effectively blocked SSTL’s future growth path in India both in terms of expanding wit [...]

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Google Maps Easter Egg for Philadelphia

Here's a cool Easter Egg: search for Philadelphia, click the map thumbnail from the right sidebar and notice that your query is replaced by "city of brotherly love", one of the nicknames of the city. "Popular nicknames for Philadelphia are Philly and The City of Brotherly Love, the latter of which comes from the literal meaning of the city's name in Greek," informs Wikipedia.

{ Thanks, Emanuele. }

Choicest of Cameras for a Picture Perfect Diwali

Diwali is round the corner, and whether you celebrate the festival or not, it still ends up being a good photo opportunity. Whether you want to shoot your well-dressed family or go crazy photographing the insane fireworks your neighbors put together, Diwali is a time for some great photos and we have here a list of cameras that can do it best. Of course you could go out and sell your kidneys and cars to buy the Canon 1Dx or the Nikon D4 with the best lenses, but we’ve put together a concis [...]

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Handwriting Recognition Arrives On Gmail And Google Docs With Language Support

Google has extended its input tool range to handwriting recognition on Gmail and Google Docs. In the latest announcement, Gmail and Google Docs have included handwriting among the input tools, and have made it available in Google Docs for over 20 languages and in Gmail for over 50 languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Hindi and Russian. Handwriting recognition makes it easier to communicate with non-Latin characters. This support article takes you through the simple steps to enable handwriting recognition with Google Input tools. The handwriting input is represented by a pencil icon which allows you to go with the language of...

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WordPress Killer? Welcome To Ghost (and How to Install it on a Raspberry Pi)

Keep blogging simple. Ghost is a new blogging platform built upon Node.js. Unlike WordPress, which has become a real behemoth of a CMS over the years and runs on outdated PHP/MySQL technology, Ghost promises to simplify things right back to where they began: pure, unadulterated blogging. Main Features Ghost began as a Kickstarter last year – “it’s just a blogging platform”, they pitched. When £200,000 ($320,000) was raised for the open source project, they knew they were onto something. Ghost is about simplicity. It’s not a full-fledged CMS: it doesn’t even include comment functionality. It won’t transform your site into...

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How Would The World Look Like Without PowerPoint? Projeqt Gives A Clue

You have to give a second glance to a web application which is a 2013 Webby Awards Honoree. Projeqt walked the red carpet to claim not one but two nominations – Best User Experience and Web Services and Applications. So, it seems improper to just start this article and say it is a PowerPoint alternative. It would be better to describe it – as the application sees itself – as a creative storytelling tool. Now, I have nothing against PowerPoint. We have explored creative uses of PowerPoint before. And things are also moving fast in the realm of online alternatives...

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Red Alert: 10 Computer Security Blogs You Should Follow Today

Security is an absolute crucial part of computing, and whether it’s a strength of yours or not, you should strive to educate yourself and stay current — I believe anyone who uses a computer should understand and do what they can to prevent security risks. However, if security isn’t a primary interest of yours, this can be difficult to do. Thankfully, there are many experts in this field who do this for us and share their knowledge online. Dave Parrack already covered many security experts to follow on Twitter, if that’s where you prefer to get your information. If you...

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Google Introduces The uProxy Browser Extension To Help Bypass Restrictive Firewalls

For many of us, the Internet stands for freedom. For the many behind restrictive firewalls and censorship, freedom is still out of reach. uProxy is an Open Source initiative from Google that is under development and promises to show the way through these barriers. The under-development browser extension for Firefox and Chrome uses a peer-to-peer connection to clear the way through any restrictions and set up an open gateway to the Internet. uProxy is in closed testing as the developers work to make it more secure and robust. uProxy is not similar to TOR and it will not anonymize traffic....

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How To Change Your Browser’s Default Search Engine

So, what are you searching with? Bing? Google? You might know how to use any search engine you want on the Internet, but do you know how to change the default search engine for your browser? Nearly all browsers these days incorporate a search feature, and that feature is backed by a search engine. Usually this defaults to Bing or Google, and for most people, that’s exactly the way they want it. However, there are other cases where you might want to use an alternative search engine. Or you might have noticed that some odd search engine is being used...

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First Impressions: BlackBerry Z30 smartphone

BlackBerry launched its new touch-based flagship smartphone today, the Z30, a BB10.2 OS powered 5-inch device that will start selling next week onwards in India for Rs. 39,990. I’ve been using the Z30 for a couple of days now and have had the chance to form some initial opinions about the device with respect to how it performs under regular use, the overall aesthetics of it and the ecosystem that caters to it. I will follow up soon with a more detailed review that will explain in excruciat [...]

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