Search Engine Land contributor Jyll Saskin Gales says the Search Partners setting most advertisers leave checked by default is quietly working against them. The toggle extends any Search, Shopping, or Performance Max campaign onto third-party sites where Google supplies the search results, including YouTube and a long list of smaller publishers, directories, and parked domains. Gales, a Google Ads coach who spent six years at Google, argues the resulting traffic is cheap but rarely converts.
Search Partners should not be confused with the Google Display Network, which serves ads across millions of AdSense sites and apps while users browse content rather than search. The Display Network appears as a placement option in Demand Gen, Video (where it is labeled Video Partners), and Performance Max. Search Partners exist only for search intent, which is why the setting is limited to Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns.
Gales writes that Search Partners clicks typically cost less than clicks on Google Search itself, but few of them turn into real conversions. Advertisers running conversion-focused Smart Bidding often see spend on Search Partners fall toward zero on its own, because the bidding algorithm stops finding conversions there. That self-correction is itself evidence against the placement. An automated system built purely to chase conversions still routes budget away from it.
To see the split, advertisers can segment a Search or Shopping campaign by network, which separates Google Search performance from Search Partners performance in two distinct rows. Performance Max campaigns cannot opt out of Search Partners, since the placement is built into that campaign type, but marketers can still track it through the Channel Performance report. Gales notes that unusually high Search Partners spend inside a Performance Max campaign often points to a conversion-tracking or bid-strategy problem instead of a healthy channel mix.
For a closer look at where ads actually ran, Google Ads’ Content Suitability report lists the specific websites and YouTube channels involved in Search Partners delivery. Gales says that list typically turns up a lot of low-quality and spam sites. Her recommendation, that new Search and Shopping campaigns launch with Search Partners unchecked, rests on her own advertiser experience rather than a published Google benchmark. The column includes no independent measurement of Search Partners’ return relative to Google Search.
The practical test is narrower than flipping a checkbox. Pull the network-segmented report for each Search and Shopping campaign and compare cost per acquisition or return on ad spend between Google Search and Search Partners over a full reporting cycle. Check whether the tracked conversions on Search Partners are real purchases or leads, not shallow actions like page views or form starts.
After opting out, track conversion volume and cost per acquisition for a few weeks. A flat or improving CPA with unchanged lead quality confirms the partner traffic was mostly waste. A real volume drop with no CPA gain suggests the campaign leaned on that reach more than the segmented data implied.
For campaigns still stuck with Search Partners inside Performance Max, the more useful lever is fixing conversion tracking and bid strategy rather than trying to disable a placement that cannot be turned off. Search and PPC teams building new Search or Shopping campaigns should treat the Search Partners checkbox as a feature to earn, not a default to accept. Activate it only once a campaign has enough verified conversion data to prove the extra reach is worth the noise.
Search Engine Land published Jyll Saskin Gales’ analysis on July 8, 2026, as part of its recurring Google Ads explainer series.
