Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I expect that this will reduce income for some publishers as accidential clicks will be far less likely.
Apparently it has been running on Google's search sites for a while. I understand that publishers are being warned that income may change as a result.
I should add that, at the the time of posting, only the title can be clicked on Google.com
[edited by: darkmage at 5:19 am (utc) on Nov. 13, 2007]
Yea, a LOT of times I will search in Google for something and I will just copy the URL from the ads and paste into the browser so I don't make the advertiser pay...
...as in: "I ignored the company's trade show booth and brochures in my mailbox and called their head office directly...?
Now, THAT's a funny idea. Why would you work against a well established cost-of-doing-business model?
Sorry, but I don't get that...
--- I will just copy the URL from the ads and paste into the browser so I don't make the advertiser pay --
That is interesting cause i do the same thing, but about a month ago i started to see the URLs displayed in the Ads that throw 404 of you go to them, like tiny URI but site specific, however if you click on the add it take you to the site.
blend27
What happens when Google’s 336x280 decides to display only one advertiser? You end up with a ton of clickable whitespace that won’t convert and may increase the chances of an 'accident'.
The Yahoo who stayed up late at Google thinking about this may benefit from the idea, but those of us already struggling will find it painful!
Fine, it is just another step towards competition, and that is exactly what we need. I really believe that Google has been slowly lowering the amount we receive, taking that amount, and reporting higher profits designed to drive up the stock.
Eventually, they will take too much and allow competition to enter the game (where are they?). When that happens, there will be a major change, one I look forward to!
--- I will just copy the URL from the ads and paste into the browser so I don't make the advertiser pay --That is interesting cause i do the same thing
[offtopic]
Someone should start a thread on this...I used to copy and paste also but now just use a toolbar that does it for me so this change won't have any effect. I'm suprised to find others that don't click the ads!
[/offtopic]
JAG
To clarify some questions that have come up, this means that only clicks on the title or URL of a text ad will take users away from your page, register as clicks in your account, and result in advertiser charges. Clicking the ads' whitespace will not do anything. We'll have more info about this change in an AdSense blog post coming soon.
As you know, this new format is similar to the format we launched earlier this year for AdWords ads on Google.com. You can read more about that here [adwords.blogspot.com].
-ASA
[edited by: AdSenseAdvisor at 9:12 pm (utc) on Nov. 14, 2007]
Also, Google users are already used to just having the titles of their searches clickable. So, this is really not a good comparison.
...and I suspect it is to help combat the prevalence of "Made for AdSense" sites...
If that's the case, why not just deal with the MFA sites directly?
FarmBoy
On MFAs...
Google is the biggest in the industry and still whores themselves out to parked domains and truely good-for-nothing, scraped-content MFAs - makes me sick.
There is a potential upside in this if the clicks are rewarded better as a consequence. With the reduced clicking area, the user intention should be absolutely clear, therefore the clicks had better be worth more to the publishers. I am 100% keeping people from accidentally clicking an ad because those clicks pay low. I'd much rather people click on an ad because they are motivated to buy or sign up for something. However it will crappy on Google's part if they manage to improve the quality of those clicks and don't reward us properly. I think that's the big fear.
Of course there will always be those with sites that lack the proper focus for generating a quality click- I suspect this isn't going to help them.
[edited by: martinibuster at 5:35 am (utc) on Nov. 15, 2007]
However, no one makes any money until some one clicks. Not Google and not us. I don’t think Google would introduce a new change unless they expected it to produce more revenue in the end. As long as our percentage remains the same this should have a positive effect on income.
If this change reduces Google’s take (and ours) I bet they system will be modified again.
Of course, there's always that nagging issue of our never having a clue as to how much our cut is. For years, Google has been taking more and more... and my revenue has gone down and down while my traffic has gone up and up.
Of course, there's always that nagging issue of our never having a clue as to how much our cut is. For years, Google has been taking more and more... and my revenue has gone down and down while my traffic has gone up and up.
1) How do you know that Google has been "taking more and more"?
2) What does that allegation have to do with Google's definition of a click on an AdSense ads?
3) It's worth noting that, if a click isn't counted, neither the publisher nor Google makes any money from the uncounted click.
Just a guess... and I'm not the only one guessing that. If they'd disclose what the cuts are, then we wouldn't have to be guessing about this, would we?
In business (and in life), if someone won't tell the whole story, then they probably have something to hide.
Here's the first page of the contract and yadda, yadda, yadda, sign right here.
I presume that the clickable area change may have been responsible for the change in income that some of us experienced on October 19 and subsequent days. In my case, the only noticeable change that I experienced on October 19 was an abrupt decrease in CTR. I must say that it was not totally disastrous in my case at 20% and was somewhat offset by an increase in EPC which resulted in a decrease in ECPM by 13%. CTR has improved somewhat since November 3. CTR since November 3 has been at -13% compared to its pre October 19 level but EPC has declined leaving ECPM at -13%.
I want to emphasize that this change that I experienced had absolutely nothing to do with the normal ups and downs of AdSense. The CTR drop was instantly recognizable and totally unexpected.
Does anyone know if the clickable area change started in the area of October 19th? Is it being rolled out on a gradual basis?
In business (and in life), if someone won't tell the whole story, then they probably have something to hide.Here's the first page of the contract and yadda, yadda, yadda, sign right here.
Your theory is strong apart from the fact that it has no facts at all to support it.
[edited by: Atomic at 5:51 am (utc) on Nov. 15, 2007]
3) It's worth noting that, if a click isn't counted, neither the publisher nor Google makes any money from the uncounted click
How do you know that Google does not charge the advertiser from uncounted clicks? AFAIK, we do have just "Google's Word" for it, which I do not trust at all. I suspect they are happy to take the advertisers money and just not count the clicks to us.
Or do you have any inside information that is not available to the general public?
I presume that the clickable area change may have been responsible for the change in income that some of us experienced on October 19 and subsequent days.
The warning emails were only sent Nov 12 and it said that the changes will be rolled out "in the next few days" so I doubt that that's the cause for the Oct 20 slump.
UNLESS of course, some of the publishers were used as "guinea pigs" to see how far the drop will go. It would help if the publishers affected by the Oct 20 debacle noticed any change in the clickable areas of their ads.
On another site, I've still got fully clickable 468's and 160 skies.
Yesterday I noticed some ads without a clickable background and text on one of my sites, but today they disappeared again. My CTR yesterday was the highest of this month, strange.
