Google Caught Testing Big Banner Ads on Search

Barry Schwartz (Search Engine Land)

Google-plus logoGoogle is testing yet another change to its search engine, and this time it’s a huge one—literally. After being “caught” testing a huge banner ad on the search results page for the query “southwest airlines,” the search giant confirmed that it’s testing larger banner ads on results pages for branded queries. If rolled out to the masses, this would seem to break a promise Google made back in 2005. What you need to know.