AdWords Displaying Favicons in Search Results
I’ve just noticed that Google AdWords is displaying advertisers’ favicons alongside the destination URL in the Google search results.
Here’s what I’m seeing:
Taking a look at the source of the favicon images being dispalyed in the search results, they are .png files that are being stored at:
http://www.gstatic.com/ads/images/favicons/
At this stage, not all ads have a favicon displaying. Travelodge gets it’s favicon displayed, but Lastminute.com doesn’t.
It’s not a question of whether the site has a favicon.ico installed, because these images are .pngs coming from Google’s own archive.
I can’t quite make sense of it yet, but not doubt all will be revealed in due course!
Some more examples:
Update: they appear to be off again?
March 13th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Good spot, Susan. I also hadn’t seen the physical address of the business shown before, as at the bottom of that “Holiday Inn Sheffield” result.