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.
Related content links are a completely different animal.
This is nothing new and honestly, Googles is no worse/better than anyone elses. It was all to be expected.
So are falling fill rates and cpms. Most adnetworks are good for a couple of months.
On another note, having a tiny Google search box would be better than the related searches. I think that is a good idea, and less obtrusive since people actually have to think about what keywords to use to leave your site. Make them work a bit to leave, if they aren't planning on clicking an AdWord
You know, I rather like that idea. Would be a tight fit on the skyscrapers, but could be done w/CSS.
"Mini-Goog became all the rage as the search engine popped up everywhere, including grandma's toaster..." the news reports will read ;)
It will affect the CTR period! :(
My CTR has taken a big hit since yesterday afternoon or early evening. It's currently about 40% down from what it was two days ago and 30% below my long-term average. Revenues are also down.
I don't think the drop in CTR has anything to do with the "Related searches" link, though, unless there are a lot of blanks and "Related searches" blurbs showing up on my pages in other regions of the world. (Every AdSense box that I've looked at on my site has displayed ads, and the only "Related searches" link I've seen has been a tiny one in the AdSense border.)
More likely, something else is also happening, and the furor over the "Related searches" links is a convenient distraction (for Google) from the question of why some of us have seen a sharp and unprecedented drop in CTR in the last 36 hours or so.
This is nothing new and honestly, Googles is no worse/better than anyone elses. It was all to be expected.So are falling fill rates and cpms. Most adnetworks are good for a couple of months
Perhaps, I have so much faith in Google and consider it as a god that I can't accept that fact. In the long run, I believe google would still be paying us much more than other ad networks.
To be frank, I may complain but I won't pull off the adsense ads from my sites because they help earn me much more than other networks and thats the case with most publishers as well.
[edited by: Imaster at 6:06 pm (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
europeforvisitors
Maybe a new filter kicked in at Google that is automatically cancelling out fraudulent or repeat clicks. If you have regular visitors and they have been clicking your Adsene ads, legitimately, maybe thier IP has been logged and Google is disallowing that click.. With everything else going on in the past 48 hours who knows what else the big G is up to.
...now I have some pages that show a blank ad with no related searches and just a message where Ads by Google used to be saying 'This blank space is brought to you by Google'.
I don't mind the ads that offer related sites and the Google link. What I mind is the blank space with only a Google link on them. I have no chance to make money from them on those pages, yet Google has a link there.
The ugly part is that if the surfer clicks on the Google link, it whisks them away from my site and to Google's front page!
Am I getting paid for hits from my site to Google?
I think I wouldn't object so much if the Google links opened a new browser.
I have one extremely visited page in one of our sites which has been showing a "this blank brought to you buy Google" rectangle. This page used to have regular ads. Now, suspiciously, it has the blank.
It has also been spidered at least once a day by Google for the past 2+ years. I can't figure out why it's getting a blank. Is it because the content changes often? (It's a news page, updated daily.)
On another note, having a tiny Google search box would be better...
Giving this some more thought, they could auto-populate the search box with on of the related terms. Would be trivial to do. That would help the visitors to the site realize they would be getting search engine results ...
