Myth of the New Internet User

Are They Avid AdSense Clickers or Not?

[martinibuster]

In a moment in time where millions are surfing the web on iPhones and everyone from senior citizens to children are online, users who are new to the web are increasingly rare in the developed world.

However, I exchanged emails with a site visitor who described himself as new to the web and I mentioned removing the ads for repeat visitors. Their response indicated they knew they were ads, and that they never clicked on them, and thus was a non-issue for them. Even though this guy was a senior citizen new to the web, they clearly understood the difference between content and advertising.

That response goes against the commonly held belief that those who are new to the web are click-happy. Google ads are prominently labled as ads, and it's not unusual for them to display in promiment colors, despite best efforts of publishers to blend them with content. Because of those reasons and more, I'm beginning to believe that being new to the web does not necessarily make a site visitor more likely to click.

[farmboy]

Or could I? Is it practical to "dumb down" our web pages in an effort to get our audience to see what we think is important?

Absolutely YES.

And I'll ad that Google does it every day in their search results. None of the organic results provide exactly what the user wanted but there are ads over on the right promising just the right thing - sometimes falsely.

Whether or not Google does this intentionally I'll let others debate.

FarmBoy

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Note: When I wrote "Absolutely Yes" above I had misread the word "practical" as "possible".

[signor_john]

Google does it every day in their search results. None of the organic results provide exactly what the user wanted

On the contrary. The organic results often provide exactly what the user wants. (At least in my experience as a Google Search user.)

Ads on Google SERPs work like direct-response ads in any other medium: If they offer compelling headlines and copy, they'll catch the reader's attention and get a response--especially when they're displayed next to page titles that were written for SEO purposes and not to entice prospective readers.

[farmboy]

On the contrary. The organic results often provide exactly what the user wants

It was a hypothetical example of one reason people click on ads re: the subject of this thread.

FarmBoy

[annej]

We visited an elderly couple recently (80s). They have had computers for years so this amazed me. They had a new monitor that was huge. Just a great monitor. But they (or perhaps one of their kids) had set it to show magnified pages. (I checked and it wasn't just setting larger text.) On top of that they had a big side column with their favorites. As a result most pages were so large they had to scroll back and forth to read each sentence.

So yes, everyone doesn't see a webpage the same.

[scgcarguy]

It kinda brings back memories of a time when most AOL subscribers actually thought they were on the internet when viewing AOL generated content...

[icedowl]

It kinda brings back memories of a time when most AOL subscribers actually thought they were on the internet when viewing AOL generated content...

And that brings back my own memory of when I first got online 15 years ago and used AOL. Yikes! They made me feel as if the internet was a big scary place and that I was taking a huge risk if I ventured off of the AOL pages. I quickly found out otherwise. :) And dropped AOL too.

[OnlyToday]

...when I first got online 15 years ago and used AOL.

Oddly, I joined AOL in 1993 as well. The WWW was a bit scary back then, and spam was a special kind of AOL chatroom--not even email. Ahh... such memories.

AOL did use the internet to transmit its content to its members so technically they were on the internet.

[edited by: OnlyToday at 6:18 pm (utc) on Sep. 10, 2008]