On Friday, Google began to show these massive pop up, overlay ads on top of the Google Search results. The ad takes up a lot of the screen, blocking access to the search results page. This is a significant shift in how Google promotes its advertising services, demonstrating a more aggressive approach by overlaying such ads for users who are logged into their Google Business Profile account.
The pop-up requires users to engage with it in order to return to managing their Google Business Profile, effectively forcing them into a promotional campaign. It's frustrating for users who just want to get information quickly without being bombarded with ads, particularly in a space traditionally reserved for organic search results.
As Zanet Design pointed out on X, 'Google is now shamelessly pushing huge ADVERTS themselves!' This raises questions about the user experience and whether such intrusive advertisements could drive users away from utilizing their services.
I replicated this experience myself by Googling my business name. This overlay does not appear again after refreshing the page, but it creates an initial barrier to accessing essential business management tools. The fact that this is happening within a user's own business profile interface is alarming.
Collection
[
|
...
]