Google is a company known for making incremental changes to their products in order to improve the performance of them. The great thing 
about them is that they have tons of research being pumped into such small changes, with the aim of improving the user experience one has when using their product/s or service/s, such the search engine. The most recent change that Google has rolled out comes with their search engine, which sees the color green completely removed from search results, as well as the introduction of favicons.
What has Changed?
In the latest update by Google, the following changes have been brought to light:
- Anything that was in green (URL, Ad logo) is now black. This applies to both organic and paid search results.
- Favicons are introduced to organic results, in a similar area that the ‘Ad’ sign appears.
- The grey line that separated the title and description of the search advert has been removed.
What are the implications of this for search results?
For organic search results, the biggest change comes with the introduction of favicons to search results. This means that if you have a website, it is an absolute necessity to make sure you have a favicon, and a good one at that too – this can be used to grab the web user’s attention for better click through rates.
If favicons are going to play a greater part in organic search results, it might be worth reviewing the current favicon and logo of your website/business. The more recognizable it is, the more it will help your organic performance. Maybe a change in logo is needed? The reason for this is because this is the first ever change that Google has made to introduce images to Google for all results.
What are the implications of this for PPC?
For PPC, the change makes clear that the color combinations and removal of the grey line between the title and description is Google’s attempt of making adverts blend in further and further with organic results – the main differentiating factor between paid and organic search results is now the favicon, which is, by default, a black ‘Ad’ for paid search adverts.
With this in mind, it would be a good idea to look at how the click through rate of your PPC campaigns are affected for this subtle change, for mobile. It would be very strange for Google to introduce something that hinders the general PPC performance, but it is worth checking up on (since competitor favicons for certain keywords might appear more appealing, causing the CTR now achieved to vary).
