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Google gets paid for clicks, not impressions. As long as the same percentage of searches terminate in clicks on ads their revenue will remain unaffected.

The only conceivable impact on ads is that traffic will shift from long-tail to shorter keywords as people find what they need earlier in the search process. The exact impact this will have on click prices is unclear.

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Thought I saw somewhere that they were defining an ad impression as one which was on-screen for 3 seconds during an Instant search. That would seem to imply they're extracting some value from impressions alone.

Could've misinterpreted, though.

That is how they define an impression in their reporting but they are still payed on a click basis.

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