I heard about it being reverted, but I have seen far too many people, myself included, click the links at the top thinking they're the first result when they're not. This article on ads offering gov services has some great examples in it.
Look at how they intentionally tried to differentiate the ad from the rest of the search results: large swaths of white space separate the top sponsored ads from the rest of the search results even in a time when monitors were smaller, with clearly different link and background colours, etc.
I wonder if anybody's built a browser plugin to provide Google search results pages that look like they used to back in 2001? ;-)
Remember when Google highlighted ads in different colours? Like the garish pink and green from way back in 2001: https://edge45.co.uk/blog/google-adwords-evolution-timeline/ (scroll down to see it near the bottom)
Look at how they intentionally tried to differentiate the ad from the rest of the search results: large swaths of white space separate the top sponsored ads from the rest of the search results even in a time when monitors were smaller, with clearly different link and background colours, etc.
I wonder if anybody's built a browser plugin to provide Google search results pages that look like they used to back in 2001? ;-)