The Evolution of Google Ads over 20 Years
Is Google’s new “Sponsored results” paid ads section hurting your law firm’s website traffic?
As can be seen from the screen shot above, the new Google paid ads “Sponsored results” section makes no clear distinction that all the listings in the fold are paid ads, not just the first one. Gone are the small “Ad” labels for each individual ad. As of mid-October 2025, users around the world are encountering this new layout. Google claims that the new layout was done “To make navigation even easier, we’re updating how we show ads on Search”. The question is this: are google users inadvertently clicking on these ads while under the impression that they are clicking on organic results? Let’s first have a look at what an older ad layout looked like:
It is abundantly clear that every listing in the above image is an ad. According to a recent SEO Roundtable article by Barry Schwartz, a survey of his “X” followers revealed that 63% (mostly SEO professionals) had inadvertently clicked on an ad in the new layout by mistake. Our own anecdotal evidence here at Conscious also shows some evidence of cases with lower click-through rates despite stable keyword rankings in the local pack and organic SERPS that did not trigger an ad section.
To compound the issue, even reporting tools like Bright Local mistook some ads for rankings. The following number 1 organic ranking was reported as a number 4 ranking with a drop of 3 positions! This caused affected clients to worry needlessly but we also have faith that reporting tools will quickly adjust to the new formatting rules by the next reporting period, as they have historically done so with each successive update.
Shortly after making the new changes Google did add an “Hide sponsored results” button below the ads. Most SEO’s would prefer the button to come at the top of the section for improved clarity, however we suspect that normal users will quickly become aware of the new ad rules and normal click-through rates will resume.
How to best respond to Google’s new Sponsored results section
To combat the impact of the new "Sponsored results" section on your law firm’s SEO campaign, the best strategy is to focus on strengthening your organic visibility and optimize for user intent and engagement once they visit your site. The positive spin is that the new "hide" button mean users who prefer organic results can now hide the entire ad section with one click, increasing the value of top organic rankings. Even if the ad section remains as is, the importance of ranking highly in the local pack and organic SERPS just became even more crucial.
Top organic rankings are also essential for attracting the attention of AI organic results overviews: Around 40.58% of AI Overview citations pull directly from Google's top 10 organic results . Even more striking, there's an 81.10% probability that at least one source from the top 10 will appear in any AI-generated answer. If you rank first on Google, your chances of appearing in AI Overviews jump to 33.07%, nearly doubling your visibility compared to just being somewhere in the top 10 .
Traditional SEO isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.