Google Advertising Doesn’t Put You On The Map, Google Puts Its Map Over Your Advertising!

Google have been ramping up their efforts over the past year to become a major player in the local market. Their attempts to buy Groupon, and the roll out of Hotpot suggests they are extremely serious about this direction.

 In a bid to increase their strength in this area they are constantly testing and tweaking the layout of their search results page.

One day the “7 Pack” of local businesses “Places” ads will be prominently displayed at the top of the first page, the next day I perform the search I find that the Google Places ads are blended in with the rest of the organic results.

 It’s the same with the map, one day the map is at the top of the page, the next it’s on the right.

 I understand that they need to test different layouts to find out what works best for themselves and the user, after all they are a commercial company and, as any public company should, it is seeking to maximise revenue for its shareholders.

This is why I find there latest offering so puzzling. It doesn’t benefit the user, the advertiser, and ultimately, therefore, Google themselves.

I logged into Google and performed a search for the phrase “commercial carpet cleaning”. The phrase doesn’t matter so much; it’s what I discovered that’s the shocker.

 When the results were returned, the page was displaying 3 paid ads at the top, followed by a couple of organic search results below, and then some Google shopping results. Over on the right, I had the map at the top and some more Google Adwords ads below.

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Nothing earth shattering so far.

Because of the map on the right hand side there are only 3 Adwords ads displaying “above the fold”.

The shock came when I scrolled down to see the results that were further down the page.

As I scrolled down, the text of the page moved upwards, BUT the map retained it’s position on the page, obscuring the Adwords ads as they moved underneath the map.

 It went from this… to this!

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 to this!

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If I was www.allcarecleaning.co.uk I would not be happy… at all.

They were positioned at the top of the right hand results and presumably paying Google a higher rate to be there, and now when anyone scrolls down the page they disappear. Why on earth would Google hide a significant revenue stream like this?

 Why would a company deliberately annoy the people who are wanting to give it money?

 I personally don’t get it.

 I thought about this for a while and one reason I came up with was that maybe Google are going to go to a paid Google Places model and force local businesses to pay if they want to retain their current position at the top of the search engine results page.

 This is pure speculation of course, but it makes sense. The positioning of the “7 Pack” of Google Places results is prime Google real estate.

 Only time will tell, but I don’t know of any business that can get away with charging customers to advertise with them and then cover their ads up with their own advertising. Not for long anyway.