Oh boy, things might soon change for the worse if you're a big fan of Google Search.
The company is now testing huge banner ads inside of its search results, which will appear at the top of the page and can be used if you're searching for a specific brand. As the screen shot shows, if you search Southwest Airlines, you might be presented by a huge ad for the company. We wonder if this will allow competitors, such as American Airlines, to cough up huge amounts of cash for the same spot.
It's a stark change from Google's promise back in 2005. The company then said that it had no plans to implement banner ads in search results "ever." That promise, however, was made by Marissa Mayer, who now serves as the CEO of Yahoo. "There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages," Mayer said at the time. "There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever."
Ever? It's already being implemented and, according to Search Engine Land, is currently just a small experiment in the United States. Let's hope this experiment fails, for the sanity of all of us.
