The search engine giant Google has a long history of testing new things and designs, and labeling for ads in its search results is one of them. After testing a new design for the past few weeks, Google finally settles to the usual green, but with a new design.
On February 27th, 2017, the company has confirmed that it swapped out the regular green 'Ad' label in search results to a green outlined and white background that many had seen over the past few weeks. Google said that it began testing this version in late January.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the change, saying that:
The change to the outlined version affects both desktop and mobile searches.
Here is the old label:
And here is the new one:
The previous solid green label lived a relatively short life as it was rolled out in June 2016. At that time, Google said that it was switching to green from yellow with an intention to streamline the number of colors on its pages, particularly on mobile.
While it's not a huge difference in color or style, some people said that this is Google's way to make more money by driving confusion. But Google stressed out that its color changes had no affect on consumers' ability to distinguish ads from organic listings on the page.
Just like previous colors Google was having, testing the green outlined version has shown that colors don't affect users.
The green outlined version is rolling out slowly to more users in more countries.