Report: “Google’s Latest User-Hostile Design Change Makes Ads and Search Results Look Identical”

UPDATED POST January 24, 2020 Google is Backtracking on its Controversial Desktop Search Results Redesign (via The Verge)

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From TechCrunch by Natasha Lomas:

Did you notice a recent change to how Google search results are displayed on the desktop?

I noticed something last week — thinking there must be some kind of weird bug messing up the browser’s page rendering because suddenly everything looked similar: A homogenous sea of blue text links and favicons that, on such a large expanse of screen, come across as one block of background noise.

I found myself clicking on an ad link — rather than the organic search result I was looking for.

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Now a user of Google’s search engine has — essentially — only a favicon between them and an unintended ad click. Squint or you’ll click it.

This visual trickery may be fractionally less confusing in a small screen mobile environment — where Google debuted the change last year. But on a desktop screen these favicons are truly minuscule. And where to click to get actual information starts to feel like a total lottery.

A lottery that’s being stacked in Google’s favor because confused users are likely to end up clicking more ad links than they otherwise would, meaning it cashes in at the expense of web users’ time and energy.

Learn More, Read the Complete Article

Additional Coverage, Examples

Google’s Latest Search Results Change Further Blurs What’s An Ad (via Digiday)

Google’s Ads Just Look Like Search Results Now (via The Verge)

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