it is very interesting to watch someone who doesn’t know the ins and outs of SEO and just wants to look something up on say….Google.

Case in point, my wife who holds a degree in accounting. She came into my home office one day when I had Google up on the screen and the results from a search using a couple of the key words we target. While I was interested in out organic placement her eyes went right to the top of the page and noticed we were first and foremost (of the the paid ads). Here comment was simple (I kid you not), “Wow you are on the top of the page, congratulations you must have the best website”

So while many in the know have animosity towards the paid ads and out of principle will not click on them, I suspect that many consumers are like my wife.

Like EdW, I dont click the sponsored links in the shading or the Boost/Adwords blue balloons, I hardly even notice them any more because my eye automatically discards the top couple of results.

Will the next thing be the total removal of the light shading? I wonder what effect that will have on what would have been position 1 in the SERPs? Maybe in a few months we will all be aiming for position 10 of the organics to get the most click thrus!

Re G+, people in my social media managers group are already getting paid to set up client pages. Im holding back for the moment. I guess there will be SEO opportunities just as with the domain authority of a Facebook page but in terms of generating new customers…?

Here in the UK, FB is a difficult enough proposition for small local businesses because they’re just pushing the paid ads and sponsored stories, I just don’t see the level of interest in G+ here to merit charging my clients for setting up a business page.

It’s all gone AllAboutTheMoney dot com!

A simple MyMaps implementation of the client Map should work and as far as I can tell will not show any ads.

@Miriam
RE the question of how far is too far? Well as Steve Jobs used to say: You’ll know it when you see it… and I am seeing it.

@Edw
Besides the usability and visual clutter issues, Google, in adding these EVERYWHERE, is managing to debase the very thing that they stand for…It is much easier to ignore ads that occur amidst the clutter of the search results… these slap you in the face.

The other thing to keep in mind – Google is currently the largest advertising platform on the Internet – so ads are somewhat expected, no?

@MiriamEllis – To your point about the fine line – when I’m searching, the slight shading of the ads allows me to focus only on the white space, and I hardly see the PPC ads. It has been this way for me for as long as I can remember. I don’t count those ads as relevant to my searches in almost 100% of the searches I do. It’s almost like I’m going to have to spend money if I click on them – something that I’m not usually interested in for most of my searches – and, not the fact that I’m going to cost someone else money because I clicked on them.