We’ve been seeing tests for months, and this week Google officially announced it would begin serving AdWords at the bottom of search engine results pages on Google.com. Interestingly, the company says that, in tests, the ads at the bottom performed better than those on the side of the page.

Google says ads at the bottom fit “better into the user’s flow as they scan the page from top to bottom.”

Google will lump bottom-of-the-page AdWords in with side-of-the-page ads where Top versus Side reporting is concerned. Instead of Top vs Side, the report will soon be called “Top vs. Other.”

UPDATE: In response to questions from readers we tapped Google for clarification and learned that bottom-of-the-page ads and side-of-the-page ads will be mutually exclusive. In other words, when there are ads on the bottom there won’t be ads on the side, and when there are ads on the side, there won’t be ads on the bottom. Some who were concerned that Google SERPs would begin to resemble NASCAR vehicles — cluttered with ads — should be relieved to hear this.

Related Topics: Google: AdWords | Top News

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Executive Features Editor at Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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