AdSense PSA's - they look unprofessional

Suggestions for making them look better

[ThatAdamGuy]

On one of my sites, I've decided not to avoid the PSAs, figuring that I can contribute a little bit of good in the world via AdSense beyond just my pocketbook :D.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty displeased with the new AdSense PSA ad look. I'm using the vertical 4-down column style, and the URLs are invariably split along two lines in this icky fashion:

www.unicefus
a.org

Since there's such a huge amount of space, I'd much rather see:

www.
unicefUSA.
org

or perhaps even better, just put the URL in a small font (wouldn't people rather see UNICEF or whatever the organization is in big type, and not really care about the specific URL?)

Also, the general font of the PSAs just looks yucky and blocky and could really be helped by some anti-aliasing.

Your thoughts?

- Adam, tempted to replace AdSense PSAs with self-designed PSAs, which'd let me not only pick the look'n'feel, but also the specific charities :)

[wonderboy]

I know what you mean, very icky, good idea about personal, self made PSAs, may have a go when I am in a charitable mood =)

W.

[Jenstar]

I have never had a PSA problem on any of my sites, so I wasn't particularly bothered by the new design. However, with the whole fiasco where all sites showed PSAs only [webmasterworld.com] a few days ago, I changed my mind to really disliking them.

The leaderboard style of PSAs is the absolute worst. I would much rather see two larger PSAs across a leaderboard than see the giantic font currently used for a single PSA.

[jbgilbert]

Same here Jen -- if this goes too far, I'll probably have to take the time to set up alternate ad delivery and deliver "blanks" or a professional looking ad targeting my favorite charity...

[linuxguy]

The whole idea of the gigantic PSA is just a test. What's the next is the option for the publishers to push this kind of advertising. I'm pretty sure Google will give us the option to block this. Publishers will start to push flashy designs and not just text.

It may be a good thing as our payments could increase. The current adsense text advert is probably getting boring for surfers. The chance to have any design by the publisers on our websites may be actually very good for us.

I will love to run those adds if I get pay 10 times more for a click.

[Jenstar]

>>The whole idea of the gigantic PSA is just a test.

Unfortunately not. It was in beta on premium publisher's first, then was launched permanently on March 18th AdSense-wide. Perhaps if they receive feedback from publishers they will change this, but I suppose they feel that because of the alternate ads and the alternate ad color options, there is enough choice for publishers.

[Sunflux]

I hate them. They don't even follow my specified color scheme, so they stick out like a big giant sore thumb. Boo, hiss!

[sandor]

they are definitely the most hideous things ever

[Jon_King]

Is it possible to just have a blank page load as the alternate ad to keep these PSA's from showing?

[hdpt00]

Can't you just specify a color in your alternate ads and have it match the site to make it look like nothing is there. Of course, won't this still leave a huge gap if you're doing a skyscraper down the side and menus below it? I'm not sure, haven't tried it, but I think that is how it works...

-Brandon

[Jenstar]

Yes, go into your AdSense control panel where you get your script, and there is an option to choose a color as your alternate ad. If you match the background of your webpage, it will appear as a blank space when there are no targeted ads to serve.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Thanks everyone for your feedback on the PSAs - the AdSense team has told me that they're going to be making some changes to the PSAs shortly. The overall format will remain the same, but now PSAs will obey your color palettes on each page, so that you can set the background color, text color, etc, to better match your site.

Plus, as ThatAdamGuy pointed out, the visible URL was wrapping on skyscrapers, so they'll be removing the URL altogether from that format. I don't know precisely when the changes will occur, but I'm told that they're coming soon :)

If you'd still prefer not to show PSAs on your site at all, Jenstar's advice about setting your alternate ad color to match your page's background color is great. The ad block will effectively disappear instead of showing PSAs.

Thanks again for your input - keep it coming!

ASA.

[ThatAdamGuy]

ASA,

Definitely a pleasure to get the news from you. Thanks (both to you and the AdSense team) for making changes based on our feedback here. And as an aside, congrats to all of you on the IPO announcement. :)

[johannamck]

Looks like they already did changes. The font looks better, smoother and in a darker shade.

[ken_b]

Anyone have an idea why Google went to these huge ugly PSAs?

It certainly can't be that there is a shortage of worthy charities that could use the exposure.

Could it be that Google was serving so many PSAs that they felt it negatively affected their relationship with publishers?

Or was too much of a freebie load on the system?

Whatever it was, what they have now looks terrible.

And that's too bad, because publishers that might otherwise have been content to display a few of the old style PSAs might now just use an alt ad to keep their sites looking decent.

The new style is an embarrassment.

[viggen]

Since today all PSA ads on my site fit in with the rest of the ads. Good move Google.

cheers
viggen