If you don’t want to see more ads from a certain advertiser in your Google search results, it appears that you can now eliminate them. At least some users can, for some ads.
It’s unclear whether this is a test or is a new feature in the process of rolling out, but some are seeing ads appear above search results that say “Block all domain.com ads.” Andrew Girdwood shows an example from the UK, with Netflix.co.uk, but Barry Schwartz points to one for the Netflix.com domain as well. When I get a Netflix ad however, I’m not presented with the option, so it seems the feature is currently not available to all.
Google started letting users block domains from their search results about a year ago, in an apparent effort to lend to increased search quality on a per user basis.
At the time, Google noted that it wasn’t currently using the domain blocking as a ranking signal, but that they would look at the data and see whether it would be useful in the future – kind of the anti-+1.
We’ve reached out to Google to determine whether this is a test or a feature roll-out. We’ll update accordingly.
Are you seeing the new feature on ads? Is it a good idea? Let us know what you think.