Do We Really Want Video Ads in Search?

Now this is one place I’d prefer not to see video advertising: Google search results pages. But the New York Times Bits blog tells us the company started testing such ads this week.

Google already sells video ads for other sites, including syndicated YouTube partner videos and their ads. But recently its cleanly designed home page and search results have been gradually transformed to include more links and more multimedia.

Google’s Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, told Bits the ads are more appropriate given the images and embedded videos now included on search results pages. For now, video in ads will be obscured by a small plus button, but small thumbnails are the next step, according to Mayer. “We don’t want all sorts of video and banner ads all over the site all the time,” she said. Good, because neither do we!