We've become very familiar with the Google Checkout favicon in paid search results. It's a way for retailers not only provide payment options up front (much the same as your favorite restaurant displays their accepted credit cards on the front door), but to get more eyeballs on their ad simply because it stands out visually. Google appears to be testing a new option for icons; partners such as Ask.com and eBay are now displaying their small, favicon logos next to their URLs in the paid search results:
Not entirely surprising - five minutes after seeing these search results, I can't replicate them in Safari, Internet Explorer or Firefox. This suggests that Google is only testing a small number of searches for a very limited period of time. It would be interesting to know whether or not new advertisers (and not partners) will be able to incorporate their brand logos into their paid search campaigns. Having these visual representations of instantly recognizable brands would surely increase the stickyness of the creative, and skew the F pattern on eyetrackers.
I've been unable to find any further information on Google using partner icons (as far as I can tell) in the paid SERPs. Since it's after midnight on a Sunday morning I doubt there will be much in the way of acknowledgment until Monday morning. I would be very interested to see if these search results are duplicated outside of the United Kingdom (or even my own laptop), and what impact the industry thinks the new search favicon will have on brand equity in the paid search space.
