If you buy search ads on Naver, or sell through Naver Shopping without buying ads, put Thursday 15 October in the diary. On 8 October Naver posted four advertiser notices, and every one of them changes what appears on the integrated search results page from that date.
Taken separately they look like routine ad-ops housekeeping. Taken together, they show Naver reshuffling its SERP in a consistent direction.
1. Power Contents gets a redesign
The Power Contents UX notice says that from 15 October (subject to change) the PC and mobile integrated search placements will look different:
- a bigger profile image;
- the content’s publish date moves;
- a changed “image-emphasis” format, which “may appear in various forms depending on internal exposure logic”;
- no image count on thumbnails;
- for regulated creative, the 심의필 (review-approval) mark moves under the advertiser name, next to the publish date.
Naver describes Power Contents as a search-type content marketing product that anyone with a Naver Blog or Cafe can use. In other words, it’s paid placement for blog-style content, shown on informational queries. i-boss covered the change the same evening.
Comment: a bigger author image and a more prominent date make these ads look even more like the organic Blog and Cafe results around them. The publish date also becomes something you’ll want to show off, so stale Power Contents posts will look stale.
2. “Super Points” products jump ahead of shopping ads (test)
This is the one I’d watch most closely. In a shopping search ad notice, Naver says it will test the mobile integrated search customised recommendation area on part of the traffic from 15 to 22 October. If a 슈퍼적립 (“Super Points”) product sits anywhere in the top 30 of that area, it gets moved up to the first or second position. Shopping search ads that used to occupy those slots “may be shown lower”. Naver says the number of ads at the top of the area won’t change, and neither will ranking or billing.
Super Points is Naver’s own commerce incentive. When Naver launched it as a trial in July 2024, it gave Naver Plus Membership subscribers up to an extra 10% back in Naver Pay points on products carrying the 슈퍼적립 tag, uncapped and on top of their normal membership rewards. So the test puts products in Naver’s own loyalty scheme above products whose sellers paid for the slot.
3. Shopping collections get a variable length
The third notice is an update to a test first announced on 10 September. The first round ran from 17 to 24 September, and a second round now runs from 15 to 22 October. Naver already optimises where shopping ads appear, and how many, keyword by keyword. Now it wants the total number of products in the shopping collection (the “collection length”) to be optimised per query based on how users respond. One detail stands out: when a customised block appears below the shopping collection, it drops from two rows to one.
4. ADVoost Place moves into Smart Place
Finally, from 15 October businesses can start ADVoost Place, Naver’s automated place ads with auto-bidding, auto-targeting and auto-generated creative, from inside Smart Place Center. That’s the same dashboard where they manage their local listing. One catch: ad groups created there are locked to “ADVoost Place automatic operation” and can’t be switched to manual.
What it means for SEOs and sellers
Put the four notices together and the pattern is clear. Naver is making its SERP modules more fluid and more machine-decided, and it is favouring its own programmes inside them:
- Shopping SEO isn’t just about ranking any more. Being tagged for Super Points can apparently move an unpaid product above ads in the recommendation block. If you sell on Naver, find out whether your products qualify. Treat that as a ranking input now, not a promotion you can take or leave.
- Organic shelf space will vary by query. If collection length depends on how users respond, the number of product slots on a given keyword may grow or shrink. Track it per query rather than assuming a fixed layout.
- Paid and organic content are converging. The Power Contents redesign brings it closer to organic Blog results. For informational queries, compare your organic Blog and Cafe performance with what competitors buy through Power Contents.
- Local is going automatic. Starting ads from Smart Place with no manual option will bring in small businesses that have never opened the advertiser centre. Expect place ad slots to get more crowded around your organic listing. That matters given Naver’s recent Place restaurant-search changes.
One caveat. Naver’s dates have been slipping. Its AI-written Powerlink copy has lost every date it was given in the past week, and each of these notices says the schedule “may change due to internal circumstances”. I’ll believe 15 October when I see it on the SERP. Even so, the direction is the same as when Naver started putting ads inside AI Briefing: more of the page decided by Naver, and less fixed real estate for anyone else. More in Naver News.