Last night we noticed that Google is continuing to experiment with how it displays search results. The most recent development is clearly to be a way of encouraging the searcher to stay on Google for as long as possible and to encourage them to skip aggregator sites by integrating aggregating into the search results (sorry, that is a bit of a mouthful!).

So, Google is toying with the idea of showing prices from sponsored links in the search results, encouraging people to spend longer on their site, and to click on the links that will generate additional ad revenues.

This increases the value of having a sponsored links – last week we saw the introduction of a floating map that prevented sponsored links being clicked on as the floating frame continued in the users’ line of sight as they scrolled down the page. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that quality scores took a hammering last week, as adverts could be shown but were prevented from being clicked on.

So what is happening? Is this Google fighting back, showing that they are still a good choice of paid search? Advertisers rely on Google for their site traffic, and, in the case of sectors such as travel, will have to make sure that their local listing is optimised and consider the importance of sponsored links at the same time.