Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Are you trying to sabotage AdSense?
AdSense isn't going away any time soon. Nobody's worried about that. But I strongly suspect many advertisers are unaware of how "content-match" works and what type of sites their ads are showing up on.
The current situation is unfair to advertisers who think that because the Google name is associated with AdSense that they are getting the same quality traffic they get from search results ads.
Maybe some type of scandal would alert advertisers to what's going on.
For my part, I regularly email AdSense advertisers and advise them to look at some of the sites their ads appear on. I'm just one person and my activism won't change much by itself. But every little bit helps. (Google's new Smart Pricing should help, too.)
activism? nothing gets a competent business owner's attention like $$. expecially lost $$.
If they need *your* help to discover poor ROI what does that say about them?
Having just launched an AdWords (not adsense) campaign, I have recently developed a morbid fear of accidentally clicking on our own ads. When I see them it's like a big red button screaming DON'T CLICK ME, which is doing nothing for my nerves. I'm sure this will result in involuntary muscle spasms leading to accidental clicking. Perhaps I'd better keep away from Google now... ;)
H.
The current situation is unfair to advertisers who think that because the Google name is associated with AdSense that they are getting the same quality traffic they get from search results ads.
It may actually be higher quality.
I never hit the search engines unless I'm looking for pure information.
I would be MUCH more concerned about click fraud on the regular search results of a highly public company like google, MSN, and yahoo than on a small targeted content site tucked away out of sight of would be fraud artists and competitors especially since the clicks are cheaper which makes them even less of a target.
It may actually be higher quality.
I'll agree with the previous poster, I use SEs all day long but mostly when I'm looking for "pure content". It depends. Ofcourse if I search G for "buy used cisco router" then the ads next to SERPs would be a good choice.
Personally I'm more likely to notice the ads on a content page.
I think a much more annoying aspect of "content ads" is the way they're presented on many sites, which imo is close to fraud:
1. Sometimes horiz Ads are put very-very close to the navigation menu (which sometimes features drop-down menus etc) that it's almost impossible to navigate the site without accidentally clicking on the ads
2. Same as #1 but for vertical ads that are placed half-hidden at the vertical scrollbar on the right even at 1024x768. If the user tries to scroll down, again he can accidentally click on the ads.
Also some other placements are very annoying, like placing the ads without a border right in the middle of the page, surrounded by navigation menus/links, as if the ads were the ONLY CONTENT of the page (and sometimes they ARE :-( ). It takes a second even for me to realise they're ads!
I swear, we'll be debating these red-herrings from here to eternity.
I know it's nonsense, but deep down my brain keeps saying "somewhere, somehow, a buggy automated program is going to mistakenly cross-link my IP as a clicker with my IP as a publisher and that false result will be taken as gospel".
So, I figure better paranoid than sorry...
always click those ads - make sure they are working. Don't every let anyone dictate to you how to use your own site.
