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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.
In short: very restricted terms gave high-focus ads. Now, they give those same ads, plus many "more search" options.
I don't always do well in the 1-term search clicks. One site has one term coming up alot; I rank #16. I doubt people will click it ("widgets") when they most likely found the site by searching "widgets Widgetor" (I hope "Widgetor" is understood as a stand-in word for a country name, the capitol of which is "Widgetoria.")
If you could pay to have searchLinks removed, would you? Would you pay an up-front subscription rate? Or for instance would you give up 5% (for example) of revenue to have no ads? I would.
edited to add:
swerve expressed the opposite -- links should be opt-in, to earn a few cents per click. My scenario is opt-out, for a fee. Swerve's idea makes more sense. The 'opt-out for a %' casts us as investors; 'opt-in for cents' casts Google as an advertiser on our sites.
[edited by: saoi_jp at 2:19 pm (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
I thought that Google had very intelligent employees, and that they knew what they were doing. It's why in all previous Google frenzies I could sit back and continue making a better website. Now I'm not so sure. The whole "blank ads brought to you by Google", for one thing, is shocking. It's as though one of the employee's 8 yr old son has been let lose in the GooglePlex.
I agree partly. The related searches might be a good thing in the long-term. But try to dictate that to me, and we're going to have problems.
I read the TOS. I knew something like this might happen. Does that make it right that it has?
I've chosen to no longer partake in adsense due to the recent changes.
Meanwhile, because you are running adsense with related ads, a user who goes to your site may click out and go to google then visit me. That same user isn't likely to click back to your site since he's already been there (unless he found something memorable on your site that gets him looking for you again).
So in effect, you up google's page views, you bring google users who may not have used google to begin with. You LOSE visitors, and give them alternatives to your site and your site's content.
Who benefits? I still maintain that adsense publishers do not. If you look hard enough, I'm sure you can find a few things that the 'related searches' are good for, but clearly it is not something that comes naturally. I also strongly stress that related searches are NOT good for ALL websites. For some websites, I think it makes a great addition. For most, I think it only serves to hurt them.
[edited by: JasonHamilton at 2:20 pm (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
I think I would, I do not want them there but want to keep AdSense so yes I would definitely pay to have the removed.
I thought that Google had very intelligent employees, and that they knew what they were doing. It's why in all previous Google frenzies I could sit back and continue making a better website. Now I'm not so sure. The whole "blank ads brought to you by Google", for one thing, is shocking. It's as though one of the employee's 8 yr old son has been let lose in the GooglePlex.
A pragmatic camp that understands how business operates and will keep the relationship as long as the benefits are higher than the costs. I think I belong to this camp.
Well move over because I'm right there too. Even with these changes, Adsense is paying triple what I was getting with other ad networks. Add that to virtually up to the second reporting and payments within a month and it's still an easy win for Adsense.
The related searches feature is intended solely to enhance the user experience and serve as a valuable information resource.
As long as google does not use the related searches and blank boxes on their own website for searches, I'd prefer they don't optimise my users experience.
Some semi random thoughts...
I really do think it would be worth watching
-- Revenue patterns for the next week
-- What the related terms are (they sound a lot like the related searches one sees in the adwords tool) and how you're ranked for those
-- Your average page view per user where the related searches shows up
-- DO you have paid adwords for some of the related searches? This could result in people leaving your site and returning and you paying for it.
Once we start seeing numbers, we have good reason to complain. Do it loud enough and I bet Overture will get a couple of news reporters to start looking @ these forums ;)
Right now the complaining is a bit emotional (even though it is extremely justified. Google should have sent out a mail blast and asked webmasters to copy alternative "enhanced code" onto their websites if they wanted to participate in the experiment.
They could well have thrown in a few dollars worth of adwords credits (funny money) for participation. Infact they could have eased this by throwing in adwords credits for any of the related ads content while the impact was studied.
Oh well... we all make mistakes and this is just the second one (from my perspective) that google has made. The first GeoTargetting blunder was fixed extremely quickly.
>>This is advertising - not a tool to "enhance user experience".
I wholeheartedly agree and i'm pretty disappointed that Google would even attempt to say anything to the contrary. They are using this to drive traffic to their own site, to strengthen their brand, and to get more visitors to other adwords.
How much would a webmasterworld member pay for 2 links to their own site from all Adsense users? The figure doesn't even bear contemplation, and so I completely fail to understand the suggestion that Google don't stand to profit from this.
Finally, to me it seems that Google are treating the adsense space as a kind of window to Google.com (like an iframe) which they feel they can put content of their choosing into. I can think of few webmasters who would give ANYONE this level of control over any space on their site, however small. Especially in the light of the momentarily humourous but undoubtedly damaging "this blank space..." message.
Saying that this is there to 'enhance the user experience' is indefensible IMO. It should read 'click here for more Google ads'.
The only 'good' thing I see coming from this is that Google have attempted to brand other people's sites even more strongly and instead they have succeeded in damaging their brand at a time when there practices have never been under closer scrutiny by webmasters.
Way to shoot yourself in the foot google! Here's one user whose opinion of your search engine as a whole has just been unenhanced.
Was there a need for Google to do this? Obviously no.
If I look at it from the other point of View : since google sends free traffic to our sites, they feel with this inclusion they have every right to take away traffic from us.
Well most of us are not liking this unpleasant surprise!
Hopefully they step back with this!
Good luck to all of us.
Now, looking at all of these new happenings, i suspect, what else is in store for adsense publishers in the near future? Any guesses?.
[edited by: ideavirus at 2:29 pm (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
The positive thing that can come out of this is the fact that more people will notice the ADs now because of the related search keywords present there.
there is not even one positive thing that came out of this. stop talking nonsense, man.
