Just how easy is it to click on a Google ad by mistake?

And that's even if you mean to click it. I must click a good few hundred times a day on websites that feature Google Ads (especially GMail). I'm pretty accurate with my clicking generally, but even so I still 'miss' a few times. Those 'missed' clicks, multiplied up by the number of users who do the same must pay for a whole bunch of Googley fun...

I wonder how many 'false clicks' are generated from touch screen devices. Often when using my tablet, I scroll down the SERP and accidentally click on a sponsored link (usually on the right hand column, not the top unit), but if I am doing this (again, as an internet professional), I wonder how many others are, and therefore how the stats are being skewed. Has ad spend increased proportionally with the proliferation of tablets, or has ad spend been rising above the curve due to 'false clicks'?

I may obviously be biased, but I don't really see what the issue is for advertisers or users?

If a PPC campaign is well organised and structured (and those in the top positions as shown in the screenshots more often than not tend to be due to factors such as Google's Quality score), then if a user clicks on an advert by mistake, they should still be sent to a landing page which is highly relevant to their interests, just as they would with a natural result. They wouldn't really lose out.

In terms of advertisers, this can only be a good thing. It means higher click through rates, which lead to higher quality scores, lowers CPCs and as such, you gain greater click numbers for your budget. If you're bidding on relevant terms related to your business or services, that lead to relevant pages, then you should see returns. If however you start to see a number of clicks with low or zero conversions, after testing multiple factors such as different landing pages and adverts then as a natural optimisation practice, you should be removing these from the campaign anyway.

Ultimately yes, Google may well make money from this, but if people are still gaining a good user experience when searching on Google (in terms of seeing relevant results related to their searches), I don't really see the problem?

I totally agree with this article, the other i found myself literally leaning back in my seat and fidgeting with my monitors lighting to ensure whether the above search results on Google which I was about to click on were organic or PPC. There might be many other people battling with the same problem, but then again Google users know the colour of the ad section and if any changes are made to the colours visitors might be baffled when there search results are shown to them. Google should be displayed the same on all monitors regardless the age of the monitor... this might save time and money at the end of the day.

My monitor isn't that great to be honest. Unless you look at the monitor at exactly the right angle, then it's very difficult to differentiate between Google ads and organic.

@Andrew - I really don't see how the SERPs or even users are being manipulated.

If anything, paid ads are even more relevant to users than organic results half the time. Keep in mind, that PPC advertisers have specifically chosen the keywords that they want to bid on in their campaigns, so when a user runs a search and one of their adverts show, it's because the advertiser wants the user to see them. With that being the case, paid advertisers should only be bidding on terms relevant to their business or service and linking them through to relevant pages related to those on their website. If a user searches for televisions, clicks on the top paid result mentioning televisions (whether they realise it was paid or not), and is presented with a website selling televisions, surely that's the ideal outcome? Keep in mind that Google's algorithm could well allow a site such as Wikipedia to feature in high organic results for 'televisions' - is their page more relevant to a user looking to buy a television than the paid idea example I just mentioned?

So I really don't understand your point of advertisers being duped into paying for advertising they might not need. If they don't want clicks for those keyword searches, why be bidding on them in the first place? If an advertiser already has keywords featuring in first place organically, then they can simply choose to not bid on it for a paid ad too if they see fit - they have full control over these aspects, not Google.

This happens to me alot. my monitor is rubbish and I cant see the differance between ads and organic search results.

My girlfriend refuses to click on paid ads, much to my annoyance being a paid search specialist. She cannot provide me with a reasonable explanation for this, so I have to assume she just feels like they are evil in some way.

I would argue (and have) that the reason Google is so useful for finding information (such as cupcake recipes and endless weekend breaks) is that Google invest a lot of time and money into providing relevant (and virus free, fast loading and socially trusted) results.

So how come Google can afford to spend all this time and invest so much money into providing delicious lemon drizzle cupcake recipes for my girlfriend to burn?

Paid adverts.

I must say that I strongly agree with Mr Gould on this.

Google’s primary focus is to deliver the most relevant SERP to all customers regardless of the search term. OK they do make a lot of money from paid advertising, but there is another reason why these ads are changing (or looking more organic as some of you have said), which is because they are highly relevant and deliver some of the best click through rates.
As Peter said earlier, one of the key components to a successful PPC campaign is down to good structure and optimisation at all levels to ensure the best (most relevant) ads are only being shown for each search term. This gives advertisers so much control over their campaigns, especially when you compare it to some natural listing SERPS, but lets not get into the whole PPC Vs SEO debate! Ultimately, it means that the results you are being shown will be quality, relevant and targeted to your search query on Google. So why would it bother any user if they click on a natural or paid ad?

David, don’t worry about clicking on 100’s of ads each day! As much as this will keep you very busy, Google Adwords is examined to analyse duplicate, fraudulent and any other potentially invalid click patterns to filter these results before they reach an advertisers campaign reports. In most cases this would include clicking on a paid ad and then immediately clicking “back” to return to the search page, so don’t worry too much about clicking on an ad by mistake.

I would challenge anyone to purely use paid adverts on Google whenever they make a search query for a couple of days, and then revisit this debate. I would be very surprised if anyone has a bad experience, but let us know if you do! :-)

As an SEO specialist I guess I should be in the 'this is rubbish' camp but i'm not.

Google is a business like any other in that their sole focus is to make money. I would love them to work in my favour but seeing as they don't make any money directly from organic listings, why should they?

Every digital marketing professional, regardless of their specialism, knows what Google is about so why moan when they try to increase their revenue through paid search. We shouldn't expect anything else.

I don't think they are misleading anyone or pulling the wool over anyone's eyes. The majority of searchers do not have the in-depth knowledge of search engines that we possess and probably don't care whether an ad is paid or not, as long as they are directed to a relevant page.

Granted it is annoying but there's always Bing.