This is not how most users perceive it. To us techies, sure. Whenever I watch any regular person using Google though they invariably always click whatever the top result is (usually sponsored) and don't see any distinction.
Sure, but then the advertising model is working then, at least for Google and the companies that pay them. If people don't want to read a big heading literally called sponsored results [0] then I don't know what to tell them. Or they just don't care because they're not paying anything to click.
Good screenshot! Ads take up the majority of the space on that page, and are styled to look almost identical to search results. That's a problem for people like me that expect a search engine to primary deliver search results, not ads.
It looks especially bad if you are someone who has left google behind for awhile. Guess its the whole slowly boiled thing. I feel the same way when I accidentally see television commercials. Cannot believe how bad they are now.
While true, it's still a user-hostile move. You kinda have to meet your customers where they are. If people are clicking ads without knowing it, that's a serious design problem. Yes, people should learn to read, but the risk of placing too much burden on users is that all it takes is one ambitious product manager to push an A/B test that generates huge revenue wins while enshittifying the product for everyone else.
I'm not sure it is a problem, as it's Google's page, they can do whatever they want with it, and they'll of course do the profit maximizing action. Who is anyone to say it's a serious design problem?
Occasionally I have to help someone find something through Google. The hardest part is getting them to not impulsively click the first link, which is invariably an ad instead of the right thing. The second hardest is helping then navigate back to the search results. The third, of course, is stopping them from clicking the second link. Also an ad for the wrong thing.
I stopped trying to help people with computer stuff unless I can take over and trust them to not blame me when some random, unrelated thing breaks down the line.
