Yahoo Test Removes Display URLs On Select Text Ads

By Ginny Marvin

Published: November 25, 2014 at 11:11 am

Yahoo ad test not showing display url, source Brandverity

Yahoo appears to be running a new test on search ads in which the display URL isn’t displayed in the ads. What’s interesting, though, is that the display URLs aren’t removed on all the ads within a SERP — some ads do have a display URL showing.

Above is a screenshot captured by paid search brand monitoring firm, BrandVerity, which spotted the test.

Notice that the three highlighted ads have no display URL showing below the ad headline. But there are display URLs in the ads for Orvis and Amazon. Typically we see search engines testing all or nothing in a SERP.

I haven’t been able to replicate this experience. Jennie Scholick from BrandVerity says they have managed to replicate it manually, but not consistently, on brand searches for QVC, Gamehouse, Overstock.com, PCMmall.com, CDW.com and J. Crew.

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Amazon.com Bed Bath & Beyond BrandVerity, Inc. Persistent uniform resource locator QVC Search advertising Search engine results page URL Yahoo!

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Contributing authors are chosen for their expertise and work under the oversight of the editorial staff. Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush. The contributor was not asked to mention Semrush; the opinions expressed are their own.

About the author

Ginny Marvin

Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.