Facebook Pushing Further Into Search Ads

It sure looks that way, as the company has quietly begun rolling out more search-driven advertising, including a new category of Sponsored search ads.

Last month Techcrunch reported that Facebook had begun placing text ads—i.e., sponsored listings— directly within the search results that automatically appear as a user types in a query on Facebook.com. Then last Thursday Facebook began expanding that test. Now, when some users type in a search query on Facebook, they'll encounter stand-alone ads labeled Sponsored atop their search results, rather than intermingled with the organic search results.

In other words, Facebook has created a new category of ads within its search lisitngs.