Many noticed it last month, but Google has made it official: many AdWords placements at the top of the page will be getting extended headlines.

For ads in which each line seems to be a complete sentence, ending in the proper punctuation, Google will move the first description line to the headline, separating the two lines with a hyphen. The company says the changes will start today and the roll-out will continue over the next few days.

The company says it’s making the change after tests that showed a higher click-through rate, both for the ads with longer headlines and for the ads beside them. Around the same time Google was testing the long-headline AdWords, it also appeared to be testing a version that combined the two description lines. Presumably, the longer headline performed more favorably.

This change will occur globally — tests were seen both in the U.S. and the United Kingdom — and marketers can increase the chances of having their ads appear this way if they write creative that appears to be two distinct sentences with proper punctuation. In English, that would mean a period or a question mark.

Hat tip to John Ellis and Emma Chun for sharing their sightings of the tests with SEL.

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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