Search Partners are enabled by default on every Google Ads Search campaign. Most businesses should turn them off. Here’s how to decide.
The first thing I check in any new account audit isn’t keywords or bids. It’s network settings. And in most accounts, Search Partners are on — quietly consuming budget and polluting the data.
Search Partners aren’t inherently bad. But in most lead generation accounts, they’re making your numbers look worse than they should.
What Are Google Ads Search Partners?
Search Partners are third-party websites that show Google search ads alongside their own search results. This includes sites like Ask.com, AOL, and hundreds of smaller vertical search engines.
When Search Partners is enabled, your ads can appear on these sites in addition to Google.com. Google charges you the same way — per click — but the traffic quality is usually different from Google Search proper.
Why Search Partners Often Hurt Lead Gen Performance
Intent Is Lower on Partner Sites
Someone searching on Google.com is in active search mode. Someone searching on a smaller third-party site may be using a different mindset — browsing, exploring, less committed to taking action.
This matters for lead generation. Lower intent means lower conversion rates. Lower conversion rates mean higher effective cost per lead, even if the cost per click is the same.
Your Data Gets Harder to Read
When Search Partners traffic is mixed into your Search campaign data, you can’t cleanly evaluate the performance of Google.com traffic alone. Your conversion rate and CTR are averages across two different traffic sources with different characteristics.
You might think your campaign is underperforming when it’s actually your Google.com traffic performing well and your Search Partners traffic dragging down the aggregate numbers.
Quality Score Is Affected
Google calculates your Quality Score partly based on expected CTR. If Search Partners traffic has lower CTR than Google.com (common), it can drag down your expected CTR signal — which affects your Quality Score and therefore your cost per click on Google.com.
How to Evaluate Search Partners in Your Account
Before turning Search Partners off, check whether they’re actually a problem in your specific account.
Segment your data by network: In Google Ads, go to your campaigns, click Segment → Network (with content network). This breaks your performance data into Google Search, Search Partners, and Display.
Look at these metrics by network:
- Cost per conversion
- Conversion rate
- CTR
If Search Partners shows a materially higher cost per lead and lower conversion rate than Google Search — which it usually does in lead gen accounts — turn it off.
If Search Partners is performing comparably to Google Search, leave it on. Free incremental volume at similar economics is worth having.
How to Disable Search Partners
For each Search campaign:
- Go to Settings
- Click Networks
- Uncheck ‘Include Google search partners’
- Save
Repeat for every Search campaign in the account. This setting doesn’t have a global toggle — you have to do it campaign by campaign.
The Display Network Is a Separate (Bigger) Problem
While you’re in Network settings: make sure ‘Display Network’ is also unchecked on all Search campaigns.
Display Network in Search campaigns is almost always a mistake for lead generation. It’s a different channel with different targeting, different user intent, and different performance characteristics — and it has no business sharing a budget and campaign structure with your Search campaigns.