Google has updated its "How the Google Ads auction works" page to add a line that says that Google will run different auctions for each ad location.
The new text added to this page says:
When someone searches on Google, we run different auctions for each ad location - for example top ads are selected by a different ad auction from ads that show in other ad locations. Your ads will only show once in a single ad location, but across ad locations your ads can show more than once.
Here is a screenshot of what was added, highlighted in orange:
Anthony Higman spotted this change and wrote on LinkedIn, "Not sure how that can actual work and still be an auction? And how multiple auctions can be going on at the same time and not influence each other?"
Navah Hopkins commented and wrote, "This is going to erode the quality of the SERP so badly. Get ready for big budget brands to own everything and everyone else running to Demand Gen for some chance at standing out."
Here is the older version and you can compare it to the live version here.
This is an interesting change to how we understand the Google Ads auction but with Google changing the definition of top ads last year because they continue to mix ads with organic results - maybe, just maybe, this makes sense? Or maybe not... And yes, Google has been double serving ads recently, which goes to this new line "but across ad locations your ads can show more than once."
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
Google statement: Google's Ginny Marvin sent me the following statement:
"We've run different ad auctions for different ad placements for many years. We recognize that this aspect of how the auctions work on Search may not be widely known, so we have updated our documentation to provide more details. This is also now reflected in our documentation on Ad Rank. As we continue to experiment with testing different ad configurations, we wanted to bring more clarity into how the Google Ads auction works."
Ginny also addressed the double serving topic in this comment:
Regarding your other questions, I expect you’re referring to the experiment showing two different ads from an advertiser in top and bottom positions in the results. This is still an experiment and there is no action to take at this time.
