This morning I noticed ads showing up in my Google search results, the first time I’ve seen any in a long time.

I say that it has been a while since I’ve seen ads like this because I’ve long used the Adblock Plus browser extension to remove ads from web sites that I visit. Now either this new ad format hasn’t been added to the Adblock filters or Google has found a way around them. Regardless, all that matters to me is that the top search results being returned by Google are now useless to me.

I was looking for information on how to make networking diagrams using the latest version of Visio, so am I interested in other network mapping tools? No, I’m not. Am I interested, for that matter, in a bunch of related images of networking diagrams? Nope. I’m interested in getting to the info Microsoft has published on the network diagramming features in Visio.

I’ve gotten used to the fact that the Google’s ability to source relevant information has been gradually declining. Blocking the ads on their site has been my way to help Google out, to try to salvage some use out of their search tool. Forcing me to view their crappy ads does little to further endear me to their search product, and everything to make me consider developing new search habits.

Update – Nov 19, 2013: It appears that these ads qualify as acceptable advertizing that adblock agreed to let through their filters. Fortunately, you can turn this off in the add-in options (look in the add-in settings for Adblock Plus and make sure that Filter preferences > Allow some non-intrusive advertizing option is turned off).