Usability tweaks are afoot at Google! This week, TechCrunch reported that Google PPC ads are now showing further to the left in the side column instead than usual. What’s their angle here? At first glance, I would guess that they want to bunch the PPC ads closer to the organic results to present a more integrated format for search results. Since your average Google searcher may not be aware of the difference between organic and paid search results, I’m guessing that Google made this change to pump up click-through rates and get a little extra cash in this recession of ours.

I’d be really interested to see what kind of user research and analytics went into this decision. We all know how intensely methodical Google is about making changes to their interfaces, so they probably had a really good reason to do this. What that reason is is anybody’s guess, though.

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