Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I for one do not like that as people may click on that rather than the ad.
ADD IN
In fact I have now just seen one add that had no ads but just a whole bunch of links for related searches.
absolutely, it may change the profile dramatically of adsense sites. For a start, if i had a commerce site selling things or was in any way "shy" of my competitors, there is absolutely no way i would have adsense on my site.
In some ways, this is a brilliant move by Google.
Having said that, we expect our earnings to reduce dramtically.
I don't mind related searches appearing in AdSense Ads at all. Just pay me.
On some of my pages I'm seeing four related searches
Buckworks - are you showing four searches on targeted ads, or just on the charity ones?
more searches and exposure for google = more money for google.
The purpose of this is VERY beneficial to google, but they want to pretend it doesn't help them anymore than it helps you as a publisher. I call BS on that one.
Can anyone tell I'm mad about the bait and switch?
Yes, but not an empty box of a different color from the background! If it were transparent then fine. But a big colored box? Gimme a break.
But you can now change the background (and border and text and links)
I have a content rich site. As users read down my pages, they look over to the skyscraper ad, which of course has colors that complement my site, and see topics that I carry ON MY SITE. Believing they will be linked to another internal content page, they click on the link and are brought OUT of my site, to a Google search which lists my competitors. The skyscraper ads on several pages had 2 legitimate ads and up to EIGHT "related search" links out of my site. These are not small fonts embedded in the border, but rather large bulleted items that take up the space of two or more sky scrapper ads in a prominent position on all my webpages.
Since the average user on my site visits nine pages, and up to 75% connect directly to me rather than come in through another site or search, I am confident they do NOT want to be (mis)led off my site.
NO amount of compensation is worth destroying my userbase.
[edited by: JasonHamilton at 3:24 am (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
I know their terms allow them considerable latitude while our choices are limited to "take it or leave it" (yes, I read the ToS before signing on) but even so I'd have expected them to have more honor about what they do and how they do it.
Tweaking the CPC share is one thing, making such a substantive change -- without notification -- to what they're delivering on our web pages is hardly something that builds trust.
@ Jenstar, I've never seen an ad on any of my pages that I recognized as being a charity ad. I've only ever seen well-targeted commercial ads.
[edited by: buckworks at 3:23 am (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
[edited by: seaboy at 3:28 am (utc) on Aug. 7, 2003]
