Google's "Search Plus Your World" Promo Returns

I was surprised to see a promotion for Google’s “Search Plus Your World” feature turn up in my search results today. I was even more surprised that even after I dismissed it, the promo returned at least twice more.

It’s Not Your Imagination

Apparently, I’m not the only one. I can see others on Twitter complaining about it:

Here’s Andrew Chen:

When I google, the “Welcome to Search plus your World” shows up over and over. Can’t be dismissed. wtf

Jonathan Dugan:

Google, if you keep spamming me with “Welcome to Search plus Your World” every time I run a search, I’m going to stop using your service

Stryder Crown:

“Welcome to Search plus Your World” I get it, I get I get I GET IT I GET IT! NOW PLEASE GO AWAY!!! When did you become like this??

The Promos

When Search Plus Your World launched in January, Google showed these messages to help alert people about the new service. The promo then looked like this:

We’re now three months into the launch, but for some reason, Google’s apparently decided everyone need a reminder about it. At least two slightly different promos are now running. There’s this one that I initially saw and which Chen posted:

There’s also this, which I saw when doing further searches. I’ve also shown how it appeared just above my first search result:

Dismissed, Yet It Returns

The promos all have a little X button to the right to dismiss them. That’s the surprising thing. I clicked on this when I saw the first promo. Then when I searched again, the second version appeared despite having been dismissed. Curious, I searched again, and the promo still appeared. But then after another search, it finally was gone.

My guess is that Google has decided to show the promotion to everyone signed-in to Google, perhaps even if they’ve dismissed it the first time, for a maximum of three views. I’m checking on this and will post more, if I hear back.

Postscript (11:00 PM ET): Google tells me this was a bug that’s now fixed. Once dismissed, the message shouldn’t return.

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is a Founding Editor of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also serves as Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He has a personal blog called Daggle (and keeps his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan

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dannyroa

This is trivial to merit its own blog post.

“It won’t go away” – So what? It occupies a very small part of the page.

What’s next? Spelling errors?
http://www.postlinearity.com gregorylent

chased me right over to bing
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http://twitter.com/jhuman James Hu

“search plus” this, “like” that, “thumbs” up, “pin” again…how about “buy” or a “iit” icon – is it true “buy” now.
http://www.odysen.com/ Matt

Sounds like What about Bob, but not as funny.
Aman Singh

Search Plus your world is actually exciting. I will die to use it.
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Its not a HUGE pain, but I can see where it might get tiring to dismiss it again and again. You should have an option to turn it off.
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very useful information, be as designer i will use this tool smartly :)
http://twitter.com/Nathan_Safran Nathan_Safran

It was a ‘bug’