Is Google thinking about a click tracker?

[frox]

On an italian forum, on a thread about clck trackers, a rep from the Italian adsense casually replied saying "we hope to develop one soon".

Take it for what it's worth, but it might be interesting to have one...

[jonaspersson75]

"we hope" can mean absolutely anything.

[fischermx]

He must be kidding. They HAD a click tracker since day one.
How do you think they know how much to pay us?
How do you think they know who is cheating to boot them?
:)

[jetteroheller]

I think he means a tracker for the publishers.

200 channels are much to few.

I have nearly given up the URL channels, because for every new folder to watch, I have to give up an old URL channel.

Something like log files would be great.

example.com/folder/file.htm 90x120AdLink [2007-05-05 05:05] Blue Wigedts

[jomaxx]

No way will Google ever provide the kind of information to publishers that they can get from a click tracker.

It's kind of amazing they didn't come right out and ban them altogether. Sooner or later there's going to be a big privacy flap over websites being able to see what ads surfers -- in some cases personally identifiable users -- are clicking on.

[RonS]

Why, do you see a big privacy flap over Google knowing what searches people are doing and which result link they click on and what ads they select and their bank account numbers for Google checkout and so forth and so one and on and on and on.....

People and the media fret and worry and steam and stew, and then when it happens people see that their lives haven't ended and they go about their business... all while having lost a little more of their privacy or their freedoms.

Remember the big hullabaloo about cookies?!? LOL

[jomaxx]

It's not about Google knowing the information, that's kind of unavoidable, it's about them giving that information to every publisher in the program.

And while there are certainly bigger privacy concerns elsewhere, it's also about people having a go at Google simply because they're big and famous, and because even a tiny scandal could wipe a billion dollars or so of company value off the board.

...Having said that, I can imagine Google providing SOME additional info to publishers someday, maybe what specific ads are showing and what their CTR is. But specific click tracking information, no.

[RonS]

The only info I want is my click through rate by page.

I want to know what pages are working. I have far far too many pages to be able to use the reporting available here.

My own click tracker was doing acceptably well until IE7. I figure I was getting a pretty fair sampling with 75% browser penetration. Now I'm going to have to investigate some tracker javascript that can work with IE7 and Firefox, I guess.

[RonS]

BTW, all Google would have to do is to make a call to UrchinTracker from their JS when a click occured. They could use the channel name, or another publisher-supplied URL for the goal URL.