Facebook to bring the curtain down on sponsored results

Earlier this month Facebook had announced its intentions of eliminating various types of advertisements on the website in an attempt to streamline the system.

Nishtha Kanal|Jun 14, 2013, 09:25:53 IST

Earlier this month Facebook had announced its intentions of eliminating various types of advertisements on the website in an attempt to streamline the system. Now, in a move towards this goal, the social networking giant has announced that it is killing off sponsored results from search, less than a year after the ad units were introduced.

Starting July, advertisers will no longer be able to buy ad space in search results. The unit was introduced in August 2012 and let businesses feature advertisements in the auto search results section that popped up when you started to type a query. No more sponsored stories starting July

No more sponsored results starting July

Explaining the move to slash down on sponsored results, Facebook in a statement said, “In keeping with the goal of streamlining our ad products, starting in July, advertisers will no longer be able to buy sponsored results. We’ve seen that most marketers were buying sponsored results to advertise their apps and games, and we already offer mobile app install ads and page post link ads on desktop to achieve these same goals.”

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According to Facebook, these sponsored results were being used to promote apps and games, an area that its mobile app install ads and Page post links ads have been covering considerably well.

The advent of Graph Search could be an important factor behind eliminating sponsored search results. With the sharper search function of Facebook being available to more and more people, there is a need for Facebook to design ads, specifically around Graph Search.

This move is not to say that ads will disappear completely. As advertisers, you will still be able to display your wares on the search results page as well as Graph Search. The company is only cutting down on specific sponsored results, which is a great thing as it will help in cancelling out the advertising noise from your Facebook experience.

By Nishtha Kanal

Intrigued by all things social, Nishtha will invariably tweet about you. When not tweeting or writing about the next viral video, you will hear her proclaiming her love to Metallica, James Hetfield, Opeth, Akerfeldt and all bands that go 'growl'. She also obsesses about ACP Pradyuman and South Park and you will always find her moving around with a book. Her focus is on all the happening stuff in the tech domain, and she won't hesitate to take a shot at some of the oddball devices that make their way to our labs.