Advertiser's URL in ad?

[Edwin]

I wanted to get some feedback on this. One of the ads that comes up frequently on many of my pages (via AdSense) contains within the description the advertiser's URL. It looks something like this:-

"Company.com offers blah benefit and other-blah service"

This is within the ad description i.e. the 2 lines of text under the clickable title.

Isn't this in essence a way for the advertiser to brand their site free of charge and reduce their click-through rate, given that my users may see the ad a dozen times then later go off and type the URL straight into their browser?

What do you think? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill or am I onto something here?

[ewanfisher]

I suppose having the URL in the description is good for the adwords buyer, but not good for the AdSense user. I agree with what your saying though. I have been keeping an eye on what ads are being displayed and its the same ads that pop up a lot, if someone read them they might remember the URL and not use the link.

Maybe this is something Google should look at, after all its them that's loosing out on the larger proportion of money... ;)

[universetoday]

Remember that these are Adwords, so the advertiser is required to create ads which generate a minimum CTR or they're dropped from Google until they revise them.

This dumps out the people trying for pure branding.

[ScottM]

Personally, I don't see a problem with the branding. It's a clever way of doing your Ad Words and it may (or may not be?) profitable in the future.