Search Results Compose OF Only 18.5% Of Google

It’s been said so often that Google’s interface puts search first, that it has to be true, right? It is definitely true that Google made its name by offering fast searches without a lot of clutter, but UK developer Alex Yumashev makes the point that feature creep and ads are encroaching more and more on search results.

It occurred to Yumashev during a recent Google expedition that the actual search results are being crammed into a fairly small space. He has estimated that when the search results load, the links are only allotted 18.5% of the page. The rest goes to tools, Google services, and lots of ads.

The Google search page has three columns these days. The far left one has some tools to refine searches, which most users don’t touch. The middle column has the results, but the top section here has ads. The far right column is all ads. The number of ads varies based on the search term, but results still get second billing.

When Yumashev split up all the clickable links on a sample Google search page, he found that only 11% of links are for the actual results. If you add in tools and Google services, that’s still only 27% of links not related to advertising. Thus, Google search pages have a roughly 4:1 ad to search link ratio.

Using some older screenshots of Google search pages, Yumashev estimated how much screen real estate has been lost over time. In the early-mid 2000s, the search links got about half the page. The big changes in the interim were the addition of more ad space above links, a taller header with more links to Google services, and the tools panel on the left.

It could be said that Google results are better than they were years ago, so perhaps you need less space anyway. Even though this is probably a bad trend, users seem content with Google’s relatively straightforward interface.