AdSense Flash Ads

No Google Markings

[MyNewPC]

I have someone else do the ad placement on my site so when I see something new, I always click on the ad unless it's an AdSense ad. For AdSense ads, I right click and then look at the Properties.

Earlier today, I saw a new ad in a position that I thought we had always used for AdSense ads, so I didn't click it just in case. When I right clicked, Properties wasn't there. Instead, it was Flash.

While Google has eliminated the option of seeing the URL by hovering on some ads for several months now, I've never seen an ad with no indication it was a Google ad after right clicking. I did ultimately find out that it is, in fact, a Google AdSense ad.

I don't like this. There needs to be some way to know it's a Google AdSense ad without using the Preview Tool.

[SteveWh]

I agree.

I liked the "Ads by Google" when it was a simple Arial-like font.

I didn't like their color script-like bigger font experiment. No big deal, but it just didn't match the fonts on my site or the AdSense ads themselves.

I really don't like the elimination of "Ads by Google" altogether.

As required by their TOS, I don't use other ads to "mimic" Google AdSense ads. I don't think it is right for them to use their AdSense ads to mimic non-AdSense, or to pretend not to be AdSense. If they disguise their ads sufficiently, they'll have no grounds left for claiming that any ad mimics AdSense.

They are likely experimenting to try to find what improves click rates, but it is possible to step over the line in that quest. I'm not trying to fool anyone on my site, and I don't want Google to start trying to fool people on my behalf, either.

[celgins]

I think the original TOS statement regarding "mimicking Google ads" was aimed more towards text-based ads. But I'm sure Google would like to apply this to image-based ads as well.

Since static image-based ads are often JPG or GIF, Google simply ads a "Ads by Google" border. With Flash ads, Google can't easily modify the Flash file (.SWF), so you see no "Ads by Google" label.

I have also seen the URL problem with Flash ads and spoke with Google about it. They acknowledged that locating the URL for a Flash ad in Internet Explorer is difficult, if not impossible to do. However, you can locate the URL through Firefox. They didn't offer a solution for IE, but stated that engineers would look further into it.

[techtracker]

We were a bit surprised to start seeing flash ads show up with no "ads by Google". It was somewhat inevitable for multiple reasons, including the fact that most people don't care where an ad comes from. As Google deals more with agencies, they were probably getting push-back related to not having the ads take up the full slots.

We use a couple other remnant providers as well as AdSense and our own sales team. So tracking down the exact source of flash ads can be difficult. They only work if you can have them turned on before you load an ad, but I've found httpwatch (MSIE)/httpGuideDog (FF) to be indispensible tools for this (among other uses as well). With them, you can see all calls made by your browser when loading a page, including redirects.

[timwestla]

...I've found httpwatch (MSIE)/httpGuideDog (FF) to be indispensible tools for this...

Great tool. Thanks for the tip!