Change in adsense appearance, darker arrows under ads?

[JS_Harris]

In looking at my site I can't help but notice that the little arrows underneath 468x60 ads have had their colors made darker or brighter depending on link color. I don't like the darker/brighter appearance, it does draw your attention to the arrows which I find distracting in general, I didn't want the arrows there to begin with.

Is there any way to return them to their old color, or remove them completely?

[Lame_Wolf]

Is there any way to return them to their old color, or remove them completely?

No.

[HuskyPup]

I didn't want the arrows there to begin with.

I've always liked them, I just wish they'd put them back on my leaderboard, all my other units have them!

[eeek]

The adsense blog talks about it:

We've been testing slight updates to the look of these arrows, and our experiments have shown improvements in the user experience. As a result, we'll soon be making a few minor aesthetic changes, including darkening the arrows to make them more visible and orienting all arrows to point left and right. In addition, to help users understand what the arrows do, hovering over the arrows will soon show the labels 'previous ads' and 'next ads'. You'll see these changes appear in CPC ad units in all languages gradually over the next few days.

[Lame_Wolf]

Surely, any advert that appears on "page" 2 onwards will pay less that the ones that paid more to be on "page" 1.

[eeek]

Surely, any advert that appears on "page" 2 onwards will pay less that the ones that paid more to be on "page" 1.

I've never found anything sure when it comes to ads.

[Lame_Wolf]

Okay, change "surely" to "logically"

[m0thman]

Not sure if anyone else has cracked this but here's what I did....

My arrows suddenly became very prominent over night without any intervention from me and I SWEAR, they're responsible for some drop in CTR.

I had my ads blended, blue links with white background and border. One solution seems to be change the border colour to slightly off white - #FEFEFE for example. The arrows will then change to a much less obvious grey colour.

Hope this helps!

[Lame_Wolf]

My arrows suddenly became very prominent over night without any intervention from me

We know. It happened to all non premium accounts.

[m0thman]

Ah right. Not convinced they "have shown improvements in the user experience." though. They look ugly when they're so prominent. I'm happier with my toned down arrows but it's too early to say how that's affected CTR.

[Lame_Wolf]

m0thman, to me it smells of desparation on Google. They seem to be tweeking all sorts of things lately. It started when they allowed parked domains to have adsense. (Kinda breaks their own TOS when there is no content).

Personally, I don't want - or like - the arrows, but Google pay me, so I put up with it.

[m0thman]

m0thman, to me it smells of desparation on Google. They seem to be tweeking all sorts of things lately. It started when they allowed parked domains to have adsense. (Kinda breaks their own TOS when there is no content).
Personally, I don't want - or like - the arrows, but Google pay me, so I put up with it.

Hmm... likewise. Can we just roll back to 2006-2007 when everything was rosy in the Google Adsense Garden please :-)