Related Searches on AdSense Ads

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[Visit Thailand]

Has anyone noticed the Related searches on the AdSense Ads? Just below the ads are two links to a Google Related Search.

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.

[JasonHamilton]

<<if you've dropped the ads completely you cant have been very for them in the first place - am I right?>>

crookyboy, I'm not sure what you're saying, but I've been with google since it started adsense. My sites generate many millions of page views a month, so it's not like I'm running a small site with 4 pages of content. I liked adsense, that is why I immediately started using it.

The money in from google isn't the concern here, nor is "liking" adsense.

What is a concern is that the related content ads look like part of my site, and that they look like links *I* am recommending. I don't mind a competitor doing ads on my site if I'm getting revenue from it, but I do mind it when I suddenly become a free spot to plug in google and my content is no longer distinguishable from google's ads.

[edited by: JasonHamilton at 2:54 am (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]

[crookyboy]

sorry, i picked up a wrong signal - i thought you were getting rid as a final straw kind of thing, no hard feelings :)

[loanuniverse]

Just noticed the related searches.... Too early to tell, but so far I do not like the idea. I did not mind the ads by google links, but the related searches might affect CTR.

[RobbieD]

It will affect the CTR period! :(

[loanuniverse]

I think that the only good thing about the related searches is that it kind of shows where Google knows anough about the page to do the targetting. If you browse your site, you will see that sometimes the related searches does not appear and this indicates IMHO that Google is serving the site wide theme ad there and is not doing page specific targetting.

Check it out on your newest pages.

This is just some wild guessing on my part

[Jenstar]

There is another longer thread on this here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[kpaul]

I made a positive comment or two, and i remember a couple of others doing so as well. It would be more correct to say "few positive comments

I was one of these. I don't think a lot of people are giving their visitors credit. If you've built up a following, they're still gonna read/visit your site, even if they click off for a while. They're gonna eventually click off to another site anyway, why not be the site they go to for jump-off links?

[JasonHamilton]

kpaul, you are exactly right!

Thats why I am not running adsense. I win in two ways:

1) I get additional clicks from adsense publishers.
2) I don't lose visitors to google.

woohoo.

</stupid reply>

[Brett_Tabke]

> whatever you call it, it's hardly not unexpected yes?

This is the same thing that others have done before. Where should we start? Double Click, FlyCast, Burst, L90, and FastClick just for openers. Then we can get into 50 or so ad networks most here have never heard of.

I gotta wonder if all you folks that are upset with this by Google are new to advertising or have you just not paid attention to the adspace at all? Link backs in one form or another to the network site are very common - very common.

[kpaul]

compromise? I wonder if Google would consider giving us an option. If we do choose to allow related searches, we get a bigger cut of the money, while if we don't run the related searches, the percentage of the cut we get is a little smaller?

Thoughts?