Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I don't see a problem as long as I have a choice as what I want to opt in for and what I don't
Interesting though.
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:42 pm (utc) on Jan. 27, 2006]
[edit reason] please, no blog links. [/edit]
Google has a policy of "do no evil"....All those sites which were once tolerable to surf are now going to be hell, thanks to this 'evil' plan by google.
Google isn't to blame for inventing or popularizing "rich media" ads. If you want to vent, vent at the major newspaper, magazine, entertainment, and portal sites that introduced such in-your-face ad units.
What Google appears to be doing is making sure that smaller publishers have a chance for a piece of the action. With luck, users will be so annoyed that "rich media" blockers will become as commonplace as popup blockers. But until then, the big corporate guys won't be able to keep all the rich-media money for themselves.
or is there a link or a mentioned in the adsense control panel?
is that a 'premium' thing? or just someone has once again flouted the TOS?
any official information on that?
Brett? Jenstar? AdSense Advisor?
what ads are we talking about?
The same kind of "rich media" ads that appear on large corporate-owned sites. (Floating ads, interstitials that hide the page for a short period, ads that expand when a user clicks on them, etc.)
how many of you have seen such ads on adsense?
I doubt if many of us have seen them yet, since the AdSense "rich media" ads (assuming that they exist) are still in beta.
or is there a link or a mentioned in the adsense control panel? is that a 'premium' thing? or just someone has once again flouted the TOS?
See above.
any official information on that? Brett? Jenstar? AdSense Advisor?
Jenstar's JenSense blog has a good description of the beta. It's pretty easy to find.
Google has a policy of "do no evil"...
Having said that, if even 50% of AdSense publishers were to adopt interstitials, then Google will have succeeded in screwing up the Web very badly.
Having said that, if even 50% of AdSense publishers were to adopt interstitials, then Google will have succeeded in screwing up the Web very badly.
I don't think Google would deserve the blame. The blame would lie with the advertisers, ad agencies, and big corporate publishers who introduced rich-media ads and made user annoyance an industry standard. Google would simply be making it possible for smaller publishers to enjoy a piece of the pie instead of letting the multimillion- and multibillion-dollar corporations keep all the goodies for themselves.
I have some faith in the power of the market to regulate annoying ads. That's already happened with popups and popunders, which annoyed users so much that popup blockers are now commonplace. If people can't stand floating ads, or if they get sick of having to close ad windows before reading editorial content, they'll block the ads or find other sites to visit. Publishers who don't learn to respect their users' levels of tolerance will pay for their stupidity in lost market share and revenues.
Also, I think rich-media ads are likely to be used more on certain types of sites than on others (e.g., on sites that mostly carry run-of-network ads such as the banners that get served by FastClick). When ads aren't targeted to a site's audience, annoying formats like floating ads and interstitials are necessary just to get the ads noticed.
The fear of being a site which 'goes too far' or looks bad in the eyes of Google or Google sympathsizers will no longer be a problem, as they have 'ok'd it. IMHO, it will lower the bar for the entire net.
Blocking such layers is a lot more difficult than blocking popup windows. There are already browsers/addons that attempt to, and they are pretty unreliable. And you can't block the doorway style ads either. I initially thought this was a joke, but now I seriously hope it doesn't work out.
But don't think I don't also blame webmasters who run them. There's plent of blame for this hateful ad format to go around.
Anyway I kind of doubt the use of interstitials by AdSense publishers would reach anywhere near 50%. That would be a complete disaster, unless Google limited individual surfers to a small number of viewings per day - not per site but all across the network.
Anyway I kind of doubt the use of interstitials by AdSense publishers would reach anywhere near 50%. That would be a complete disaster, unless Google limited individual surfers to a small number of viewings per day - not per site but all across the network.
That might be a clever solution, and it would create a whole new industry--timezone SEO, with everyone targeting readers in the Antipodes in the hope of beating their fellow AdSense publishers to the daily supply of rich-media ads. :-)
Typical do-as-i-say, dont-do-as-i-do Google at it again.
more blatant than the old cry to "CLICK THE ADS"
Makes me wonder if they might be per impression rather than by the click.
[edited by: annej at 9:00 pm (utc) on Jan. 29, 2006]
I've allways opted out from interstitials, popups, popunders and floating ads from any other network, so I will probably do the same here. At least for most of my sites ;-)
So much for "don't draw attention to the ads" as these types of ads are more blatant than the old cry to "CLICK THE ADS" ever was.
Apples and oranges. There's a difference between making an ad highly visible and asking people to click it. Also, for all we know at this point, Google could decide to sell the ads on a CPM basis.
I don't like rich-media ads, but I don't see why big corporate-owned media and portal sites should hog all the income from them--especially if demand for rich-media ads grows at the expense of other advertising formats.
Mind you, that doesn't mean I plan to use them myself. (At this point, the only rich-media ads I'd even consider would be expanding ads that users activate by clicking. )
This has to lead to Google removing the BS about "drawing any undue attention to the ads" in the Program Policies.
Not according to my page of programme policies:
IncentivesWeb pages may not include incentives of any kind for users to click on ads. This includes encouraging users to click on the ads or to visit the advertisers' sites as well as drawing any undue attention to the ads. For example, your site cannot contain phrases such as "click here," "support us," "visit these links," or other similar language that could apply to any ad, regardless of content.
