When Google removed three ads, or 30% of the ad inventory, from desktop search results pages in February, many expected cost-per-click prices to soar, according to new analysis of Adobe Digital Index data.

But that hasn’t happened—the cost per click in the three weeks after Google made the change rose 2.1%—and, at least in the early days after the change, the search giant’s largest advertisers are reaping the benefits of the change.

The analysis is based on 2.1 billion search impressions from the three weeks before and after Google removed three ads from its search results.

Google’s elimination of text ads from the right side of its desktop search results pages meant that consumers were seeing 30% fewer ads, but the change decreased impressions only 10%, Adobe says. The move was slightly more pronounced for retail-related searches, where impressions dipped 15%. The discrepancy between the reduced inventory and impressions suggest that Google’s move may have been a “spring cleaning” of sorts in which the search giant eliminated ads that many consumers weren’t scrolling down the page to see, says Becky Tasker, managing analyst, Adobe Digital Index.

“Google may have been tailoring its ads to where consumers were looking and clicking,” she says. “At the same time, Google made its search results less cluttered.”

With fewer ads competing for consumers’ attention, the remaining seven ads receive more clicks—particularly the more expensive ads that appear at or near the top spot of search results. The average click-through rate jumped 17.2% across all seven remaining ads (the increase was 11% among retail-specific searches). The top ad spot, which is also the most expensive slot, experienced the biggest gain as its click-through rate jumped 39%, Adobe finds.

Those gains are making Google’s paid search ads more valuable, Tasker says, especially because the average cost per click increased only 2.1% (retailers’ cost per click decreased 3%, which Tasker attributes in part to typical seasonal declines).

“We’ll likely see those costs rise as bidding gets more competitive,” she says.