Why Adsense is Ugly

Or, Why Google's Lack of Design Skills Tries My Patience

[michael heraghty]

I admire Google's commitment to usability, but I am constantly disappointed at its lack of appreciation of the aesthetic side of web design.

The two aren't mutually exclusive, though it certainly requires more effort to make web pages both usable and "sexy".

So long as Google's poor design is confined to its own site (particularly the deeper pages), I'm not bothered. But the proliferation of Google's ugly Adsense banners around the web hurts my design-sensitive eyes (and those, I'm sure, of many others like me). It's like a blight that has taken over the web.

Worse, it has prevented me (up until now) from participating in a scheme that I would otherwise be happy to (hopefully) profit from.

So what's wrong with the Adsense banners? One simple but hugely important thing -- breathing space. Or, in HTML/CSS language, padding.

The text within the rectangles is too tight against the edges. Any designer worth his salt would see this right away. I see it every time, and it bugs me every time.

Is there any way to alter this code (within the terms of the agreement) to give the text in the rectangles some breathing room?

One other thing that bugs me about these ads -- the way most of the rectangles (in the skyscrapers) are separated by thick borders. These would look a lot better if they were hairline borders, or if there were spaces between each of the rectangles...

And, while Google may seem to offer a choice of colour schemes, it's not nearly wide enough for my liking.

This message isn't going to change anything, I know. But I wanted to get it off my chest before I join the ranks of those who are furthering the Adsense blight...

//Trudges off reluctantly to insert Adsense into his pages//

[bird]

And, while Google may seem to offer a choice of colour schemes, it's not nearly wide enough for my liking.

The color schemes you can assign to your AdSense ads are limited primarily by the laws of physics. Isn't that good enough for you?

And while you can't do anything about the distance between the ads within a group, it's easy to give the whole group some breathing space by inserting it into a block level HTML element of your own, with the appropriate padding.

I think your problem is that you're looking at each individual ad. Try looking at the whole ad group as a visual unit, and most likely the result won't be as bad as you currently think it is.

[trillianjedi]

Is there any way to alter this code (within the terms of the agreement) to give the text in the rectangles some breathing room?

Sure, just take out the rectangles by setting the colour of them to the same as that of your page background.

Then do as bird says.

TJ

[michael heraghty]

Thanks guys, and apologies -- I didn't realise that the designer had so much control over the appearance of the ads.

Maybe my rant will get people to *exercise* this control!

[fidibidabah]

Eh, I'd rather see ugly AdSense then another FastClick "OMG I'M SHAKING LOOK AT ME YOU WON SOMETHING" banner.

[top5jamaica]

LOL .. yeah, the shaking banners drive me nuts too

[Rodney]

I think the adsense ads are pretty appealing.

Not really sure I agree with you about their appearance.

[ronin]

LOL .. yeah, the shaking banners drive me nuts too

Hehehe... Adsense with <blink> tags... >;->

[icedowl]

I detest those blinking ads, almost as much as I detest popups or popunders. I can't click my 'stop' button fast enough, having to wait for the rest of a page that I really, really want to see load.

Grumble, grumble, grumble...

[jhood]

It is quite easy to surround your AdSense ads with oceans of white space and to have no lines at all separating the ads. I put the AdSense skyscraper code in a table and give it quite a bit of padding. The background is the same as the page background (white) and the font colors match the editorial text. It is a very open and pleasing look in a site that is heavy on text without being cluttered (most pages, anyway).

Oh, making this change also very consistently increased the CTR by more than 1%.

[michael heraghty]

Okay, I've added the AdSense ads using the tips provided here and am confident that they fit in with the look-and-feel of my site -- and look a lot better than most of the Adsense ads I see on other sites (that tend to use the default settings).

Thanks for the tips.

Re. the CTR going up as a result of improving the look-and-feel -- I think this is point that others should take note of.

[adfree]

And as for the charity ads:

I replace them with my alternatives that look exactly as the regular AS ads as of my customization, funneling users back into the site with snappy offers.

Sky's the limit, hey: it's Google, they have always understood to leave the web developer enough room to breathe...