For those not following Google over the last six weeks, right side desktop ads are gone and the rules of SEO and how people scan Google have changed a bit.

Dan Bagby wrote a good article on these changes and provided some insight into keyword research.

From the article:

Removing the ads from the right rail of Google search results pages was a long time coming (well, a long time for digital). An eye-mapping study from last year showed that people have gone from viewing the SERPs in an “F” pattern to doing a quick vertical scan down the left side, mostly ignoring the ads on the right side. People are also scanning the page faster by taking only eight or nine seconds to click, down from 14 to 15 seconds in the 2005 study.

It only makes sense that Google would eventually react to how searchers are adapting to the line of links they are used to by taking away the right bar. This is also further evidence of Google’s continued gravitation toward being a mobile-first search engine, since the right column of ads was not visible on mobile search.

Read the full article on SearchEngineLand.com