Google testing a carousel of Sitelink cards in search ads

Just when things were starting to feel a little stale in mobile search after the big desktop shakeup with the removal of right rail ads, Google is testing a new look for sitelinks on mobile.

Meh, a sitelinks test, you say? But this one is actually an interesting new use for cards in paid search ads. Conrad O’Connell posted screen shots of the new test on Serptests.com on a search for “ocean isle beach rentals.” I was able to replicate this once before losing it after looking for other examples, which I was not able to find. I was also not able to replicate on desktop, so it’s possible this is just a mobile test. The sitelink cards appear in a swipeable carousel below the ad copy in this Airbnb ad.

We’re calling these sitelinks because they link to pages on the Airbnb site, but they may end up being called something else. The structure shown in the Airbnb ad above looks like the card info might be pulling from a feed. You’ll notice the larger font pricing in these cards makes them particularly prominent. We’ve reached out to Google and will update here if we learn more.

Update: In July, Google started rolling out what it calls price extensions. In the announcement, they are shown in a list form, but they include the same content as what’s shown in the cards above.