Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I for one do not like that as people may click on that rather than the ad.
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In fact I have now just seen one add that had no ads but just a whole bunch of links for related searches.
absolutely, it may change the profile dramatically of adsense sites. For a start, if i had a commerce site selling things or was in any way "shy" of my competitors, there is absolutely no way i would have adsense on my site.
In some ways, this is a brilliant move by Google.
Having said that, we expect our earnings to reduce dramtically.
I don't mind related searches appearing in AdSense Ads at all. Just pay me.
On some of my pages I'm seeing four related searches
Buckworks - are you showing four searches on targeted ads, or just on the charity ones?
more searches and exposure for google = more money for google.
The purpose of this is VERY beneficial to google, but they want to pretend it doesn't help them anymore than it helps you as a publisher. I call BS on that one.
Can anyone tell I'm mad about the bait and switch?
Yes, but not an empty box of a different color from the background! If it were transparent then fine. But a big colored box? Gimme a break.
But you can now change the background (and border and text and links)
I have a content rich site. As users read down my pages, they look over to the skyscraper ad, which of course has colors that complement my site, and see topics that I carry ON MY SITE. Believing they will be linked to another internal content page, they click on the link and are brought OUT of my site, to a Google search which lists my competitors. The skyscraper ads on several pages had 2 legitimate ads and up to EIGHT "related search" links out of my site. These are not small fonts embedded in the border, but rather large bulleted items that take up the space of two or more sky scrapper ads in a prominent position on all my webpages.
Since the average user on my site visits nine pages, and up to 75% connect directly to me rather than come in through another site or search, I am confident they do NOT want to be (mis)led off my site.
NO amount of compensation is worth destroying my userbase.
[edited by: JasonHamilton at 3:24 am (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
I know their terms allow them considerable latitude while our choices are limited to "take it or leave it" (yes, I read the ToS before signing on) but even so I'd have expected them to have more honor about what they do and how they do it.
Tweaking the CPC share is one thing, making such a substantive change -- without notification -- to what they're delivering on our web pages is hardly something that builds trust.
@ Jenstar, I've never seen an ad on any of my pages that I recognized as being a charity ad. I've only ever seen well-targeted commercial ads.
[edited by: buckworks at 3:23 am (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
[edited by: seaboy at 3:28 am (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
Majority of my traffic does not come from search engines. So I owe nothing to google in this aspect.
I'm done ranting, AdSense in it's current form isn't for me.
I've got to admit; I want to play with some color schemes before I rid Adsense from my website.
One thing I also noticed today is that my CTR is way higher than ever before, though revenue is only the slightest bit higher than normal (and I'm talking nearly double CTR). Is Google mixing the click tracking of free and paid ads into the same "Clicks" value? Maybe just a fluke though - I'll see if this keeps up for several days.
I am not content to provide new exit points to my traffic unless they are paid for.
It was a nice trial run.
The more I think about it, the more I think this is the best anti-spam weapon they could use. If you had a good site before AdSense, and you think this will hurt you then don't use AdSense. If you think you'll still make slightly more money, great, but at least we shouldn't have 500,000 'content sites' about casinos and viagra.
You could have a point. For now, I'm crossing my fingers and keeping an eye on my revenue reports to see what happens.
Perhaps the launch of the ad color options was a deliberate attempt to soften the imminent blow of the related searches.
Agree scummbar the CTR should improve because ads will be more prominent so it may be difficult to see the impact of what related searches and colours have separately.
While I think it is a good technique from Google to stop people building new pages to get high SERPS in the hope that a user will click an ad. I am not sure I like it as legitimate users can now leave my site without me earning anything, which is not what I signed up for.
When you have legitimate users that have not come from a SE then why should I have related searches on my site, ads OK but am not comfortable with this move.
We have a loyal following of people that come to our site daily, the ads were great but related searches is a waste of space not a useful addition.
playing around today im finding.. (all skyscraper) all pages here are all original news items of 500 to 2,000 words, analysis pages, and original reviews of hotels, books etc.
1. A page which had charity ads because it had negative words re the marriot jakata bombing yesterday, now had just one long white box saying this space brought to you by google, and NO related searches, which i find highly surprising as the topic of the page would be related to many sites.
2. One page with 1 paid ad, and (wait for it) ten (10) related searches!
3. a few pages which USED to have targeted ads, which now have NO ads, but 6 to 8 related searches instead.
I dont know which of these are planned, permanant/temporary or teething problems, but obvously there is a lot of work ahead for Adsense publishers in evaluating and reviewing the porgam and deciding how best to use it now (or not at all!)
[edited by: chiyo at 3:45 am (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
"...If something looks too good to be true, it probably isn't..."
We have a loyal following of people that come to our site daily, the ads were great but related searches is a waste of space not a useful addition.
Is it temporary bug or what?
I didn't like "related keywords".
I just lost "Ads by Google", too.
Is it good or not?
2. One page with 1 paid ad, and (wait for it) ten (10) related searches!
chiyo, that is interesting. Right from the new section on related searches from their AdSense FAQ
As part of the AdSense program, Google may suggest up to two relevant search queries below the AdWords ads on your website
It makes the whole page look horrible - will definitely be removing it from that page.
Google has, for the first time, infuriated me by putting more free ads for them on my site than ads that I can earn from.
Well targeted affiliate ads make almost as much money for the big time webmaster who has the skill to implement it.
What made me use AdSense was the ease of use. The "Ads by Google" already bothered me.
The new overbearing idiocy by Google has so infuriated my clients that we will now not use AdSense or AdWords.
Also from the google FAQ: "If we do not yet have relevant ad inventory or have not yet crawled your web pages for content, related searches may appear in place of ads."
itisgene, you're mistaken on that one. Ads by google has always been there, and the old code isn't going to remove it. Might be a fluke, but using the old code, or the new definable color code, both have related searches output on them.
this is weird.
The one that I put the colored code has no "ads by google" or related keywords.
However, my other sites with adsense (I didn't put any modified codes into them) are showing the "ads by google" AND "related keywords".
It might be a fluke but I like it better.
The codes on my sites look exactly same but are showing different ads.
Interesting.
For a serious site with serious content I personally am very offended by that it is like they are taking the **** and looks as if I have allowed Google to specifically show blank spaces on my site.
Would a user understand why it says 'This blank space is brought to you by Google' I am sure that is going to confuse users why is Google giving me a blank space. Should we thank them for providing such interesting information.
I also think that message reflects badly on Google.
I hope some of these tweaks are temporary as I am getting very uncomfotable.
Ive always had a nagging feeling that certain other search engines may "quietly" downgrade rankings of pages that had adsense code in them because of the adwords link. Now it may not be good for their credibility if it was "known", but sneaky tricks are not impossible. Now the up to 10 links straight to google searches on each adsense page, would make me wonder (if i was running a competitive search engine) why my SERPs should feature these pages to a great extent.
Its a consipracy theory, bu what the heck, im a business person too, and people have done far worse to me in the past. :)
The whole search engine, PPC and content-based-ad-delivery" market is getting more valuable, more defined (with just a few competitors now - having gone through their M&A stage) and possibly REALLY dirty (than ever before) in coming months.
Remember, the spammers don't have real sites, it's just crap thrown together to get clicks. If their clicks are lowered? So what, it's still free cash. something for nothing is better than nothing.
Legit websites are the ones who'll be hurt, and leave.
