Forum Moderators: martinibuster
[Maybe this should have been posted in the WebmasterWorld AdWords forum.]
It is obvious that they do not want click bots, click rings, self-clickers, and such. That is a no-brainer and completely understandable.
They then recommend blending your ads with your site and/or strategically placing your ads within your site. Blending is somewhat dubious in nature: make your ad less ad-like and maybe they will click on them. Strategic ad placement is similar depending on where your place the ads (and how you blend them as well). I see many websites that place their ads right under an article's on-screen title but above the actual content again leading the "sheep" to possibly think that those ads are the content. The same can be said about ads in places where navigation mechanisms normally go. Many people overlook the "Ads by Google". So Google says "that's their own fault!?"
I am all for more clicks but it just seems that Google is pushing the limits to what constitutes fraud at the expense of the advertisers. "Don't out-an-out defraud the advertisers but try this to 'legally' trick folks into clicking your ads."
Just a small anti-Google rant from a usual Google fan (but not fanboi).
But sometimes people don't click ads because they've always been told to stay away from them. Others just automatically focus on the main content of a site and try to ignore the ads. If the link they want to click does have relavence to what they are looking for, then I don't think it should matter if they know it's an ad or not. Blending isn't exactly tricking them, because they won't click it if it doesn't interest them. In my opinion, it just makes it easier for them to find if it's smack dab in the content that they are viewing (where they are looking for information).
When you consider young people, eager people, older people, and the "sheep" out there, it may be a bigger concern than we would first guess. Peoples' ignorance amazes me on almost a daily basis.
I think the big argument for Google and their recommendations would be...these are the type of people that they (the advertisers) would get through other means anyway.
Again, it was just a rant considering so many of the recent "I got banned from AdSense for invalid clicks (with no reason)" threads out there. I know many of them are not giving the full story but it makes you wonder a bit on the ethical nature of Google. Well, I guess we already were thinking that...:)
Carry on...
One has to "draw the line" somewhere and you have accurately described where G draws the line with AS. A worthwhile and interesting post.
