Official: Google is rolling out green “Ad” label globally

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In April, Google users in many countries began seeing green “Ad” labels instead of yellow ones next to text ads in Google search results.

In the last week, more and more users have reported seeing the green labels. On Wednesday, Google confirmed with Search Engine Land that the switch is officially no longer a test and the green labels are rolling out to all users.

“We regularly test ways to improve the look and feel of our search results page. We’ve been experimenting with a green search ad label and have decided to roll it out based on positive feedback from users and advertisers. Our goal is to make our results page easy to use, and our labeling clear and prominent,” a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land.

Here’s a look at the green label on mobile:

Here’s what the yellow label looked like on another search:It would seem using the same green for the label as the display URL would make it easier to miss, but Google says it studied whether the change in color had any impact on users being able to distinguish paid and organic listings and found none, which it says was the goal.

Whichever color, it should be noted that Google’s “Ad” label is more visible than the demarcations by Yahoo, Bing and the “Sponsored” labels used for ads by most social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. For a comparison, check out our most recent survey of how the search engines treat ad labeling.

Google says the green labels will roll out to all devices globally, so if you’re not seeing it yet, you soon will.

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