It’s no secret that Google makes money from selling advertisements across its wide variety of platforms and services. Ads are also prominent in the Google Play Store on Android devices.
While we’re already seeing quite a few ads on the Play Store, it looks like Google wants to milk more money on the platform. Initially reported by 9to5Google, Google is now also showing ads on the app store’s search bar. I checked it personally, and it was there.
Instead of having my most recent search on the top, it now shows an ad, which is currently for Shazam by Apple Inc. It also shows the app’s star rating and download count. Of course, tapping the ad sends you directly to its Play Store page for you to check out and hopefully download.
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According to the initial report, Google will be putting up to three “limited-time events as well as sponsored suggestions”. Will this new ad system actually last? We’ll never know. But the least Google can do is to put the ads below the user’s actual recent searches so it’s not disruptive.
This isn’t the first time that Google added suggestions in the search bar. Back in 2022, the company tested a similar feature saying that they are organic content discovery suggestions. However, a couple of users later discovered that the suggestions have been labeled as paid ads.