It’s really important to understand that the higher your quality scores, the higher your ads tend to rank (because QS combines with your bid to determine ad position) AND the lower your actual cost per click (because you are dividing the ad rank of the competitor below you by your great QS score!).

Its entirely possible to pay much less than the competitor below you which is what makes this style of auction rather different from the normal highest bidder wins type.

If you don’t already know it Google Toolbar Pagerank is an imprecise measure of how well linked your web pages are without regard to the anchor text used on those links. It’s shown in the Google Toolbar as a green bar that varies between 0 and 10 but its a bit of a con as the measure shown is most certainly not the same as what Google might use in its algorithms. This ‘public’ pagerank score is only updated a few times a year so is not only always out of date but is not reported on the same scale the true pagerank score.

Does it affect rankings? In the sense that authoritative sites tend to have higher pagerank (because they have lots of quality incoming links) it can look like a goal for your ranking efforts but a few random searches will soon show that pages with non existant or low pagerank do outrank their high PR competitors all the time, it certainly does not outweigh the contents relevance to the search query!

It does come in handy if you sell advertising on your site as the higher the PR, the more the advertisers tend to pay.

Google have told us on several occasions to stop worrying about it and focus instead on the content of our websites and building links naturally rather than get sidetracked by their Toolbar PR. That seems like good advice

The Google Map at the top of the right hand side has been flattened so it makes more room for AdWords ads to show above the fold!

In this case at least there is a full complement of 7 local listings and 10 organic placements as well as a News listing at position 4. Other searches are cutting the organic listings on the first page.

I did notice that on a search which had fewer AdWords advertisers the map was less flattened:

Seems like there is no end to the changes…

The page layout has been structured to make more space on the right side and the effect occurs whether you you preview an advertiser in the premium spots or an organic listed site.  Just roll your mouse down the right side of any of those listings to trigger a site preview, in wider format than previous ones, that totally obscures the right hand side including all the ads there.

More pressure on advertisers to bid big to fight for the premium spots? You would have to think so. Getting into those spots can be expensive as a combination of high bids and high quality scores are required, many small businesses just don’t have the pockets and expertise to achieve both.

Results page (left margin cropped out)

Result page with preview

Thoughts? Comments? Leave them below, the non spammy ones will be published.

AdWords ads have disappeared from the side of results in Oz and are now appearing top and bottom only for many searches.

Also our result quality seems to be taking a hit down here, lots of directories and doorway pages turning up in the top 10 for many searches?