What Are Google Search Ads vs Organic Results and How to Tell Them Apart

Organic results are the ones Google ranks by relevance; no one can pay for them. Ads are paid placements that look very similar. Telling them apart takes a second once you know where to look.

How Google marks ads

• "Sponsored" label: each ad, or a group of ads, is labeled "Sponsored" in bold, above the site name.
• Position: ads usually appear at the top of the results, and often again at the bottom of the page.
• Same look: ads have the same site name, icon and title style as organic results. The label is the main difference.

Other kinds of ads

• Shopping ads: product photos with prices, labeled "Sponsored" or "Sponsored products".
• Local service ads: plumbers, lawyers and other services at the top, sometimes with a "Google Screened" or "Google Guaranteed" badge.
• Ads in AI answers: Google also shows sponsored items within or near AI Overviews for some searches, labeled as sponsored.

What counts as organic

• The regular list of results below the ads, ranked by Google's systems.
• Features like People Also Ask, videos and forum results are organic too, though they're not ordinary links.
• Map results for local searches are mostly organic, with some sponsored pins.

Check any result

Click the three dots next to a result to open About this result. For ads, it shows who paid for the ad and lets you see their other ads. For organic results, it shows information about the source.

Why it matters

• Scam ads: criminals buy ads that impersonate banks, software downloads and customer support numbers. For anything sensitive, use the organic result or type the official address yourself.
• Brand searches: when you search a company's name, competitors' ads may appear above the real site.
• Research: ads tell you who's paying for a topic; organic results tell you what Google thinks is most relevant.

Hide ads and extra sections

Search Cleaner can hide sponsored results, shopping carousels and other extra sections on Google, leaving the organic results. A content blocker hides ads across other sites too. See uBlock Origin Lite vs Search Cleaner.

For how the results page has changed, see why Google looks different than five years ago.