14 DAY TRIAL // Google has now finished rolling out a mostly cosmetic change but an important one nonetheless. The paid search results on Google.com are now labeled as "Ads" rather than "Sponsored links." This doesn't change anything in the way the ads are picked or displayed, but it's an interesting change if only because the "Sponsored links" label has been used for a very long time.
Search Engine Land, which first spotted that most people were seeing the "Ads" label rather than "Sponsored links" got a confirmation from Google.
"Yes, I can confirm this rollout. We are always experimenting with the look and feel of our search result pages, including the delivery of relevant advertising. This is on English language domains now and rolling out to all languages and domains," a Google spokesperson said.
The change, obviously, only affects English language domains, since other languages are going to have different names for the feature.
Still, the change to the dead simple "Ads" should be noticeable across all supported languages in Google Search.
Note that the change is only for ads on the main Google search engine and not for the other Google products which feature ads, meaning most of them.
Google started testing the new name about a month ago and has been rolling out the change since. Promoted Tweets, which started showing up on Google earlier this week, were labeled as "Ads" as well.
One reason for the change could be that Google found that "Ads" performed better, in terms of user interaction and, therefore, revenue, than "Sponsored links."
However, it may very well have to do with the fact that Google has been diversifying its ad offerings and hasn't been relying on text ads as much as before.
The Google Places integration and various local ads contribute to the dilution of the "Sponsored links" term. Whatever the case, you can expect to see the label widely used by Google. Bing calls the ads "Sponsored sites" and Yahoo "Sponsored Results."