adsense downtime?

or abuse of advertisment space

[uioreanu]

running mid scale campaigns since adsense inception, I recently noticed something strange. On a blog that has the adsense module since months, I'm using the leaderboard format, allowing images. All of a sudden the adsense box no longer contained ads, but just one big image advertising adsense. In the advertisment box there were actually three links to adsense, one as an image, another registration link and the regular "ads by google" line. This last for a few minutes, then regular ads came back.

I'm wondering what this could have been:
- adsense downtime
- intermediary page (page about to be cached/linked to ads)
- adsense self-advertisment by abusing the open window google reached in all adsense websites around.

[mack]

I belive Google use Adsense to advertise their self. You are still paid for the ad though, just like any other advertiser.

Mack.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Hi uioreanu -

Don't worry! AdSense occasionally advertises through the AdWords program. The ad you noticed was most likely an AdWords ad that was bid for by the AdSense program.

Publishers are compensated for these ads in the same way that you would be for any other AdWords ad being served through the AdSense program - i.e., on either a CPC or CPM basis.

Hope that clears things up,

-ASA

[RonS]

Talk about bringing undue attention to the ads... Google has decided to just plaster all over the website "Hey, this site is making money with these ads, why not you?"

OMG how hypocritical is that?

[Rodney]

OMG how hypocritical is that?

Not very.

What's so weird about running ads in adspace? It could be an ad for Yahoo (yahoo also advertises through adwords) or any other service. What makes an ad (a paid ad at that) any different?

[RonS]

I am not sure that this is an appropriate way for Google to be doing business, ASA.

You (Google) are advertising trying to increase the number of publishers, publishers in the same industry as the website. Google is using someone's webspace to find their direct competitors.

This doesn't sit well with me at all.

[Rodney]

You (Google) are advertising trying to increase the number of publishers, publishers in the same industry as the website. Google is using someone's webspace to find their direct competitors.

Why would you assume that the people visiting the website would be direct competitors? They could just be "webmasters" in general.

You could also add google.com to your filtered list of competitive advertisers if it really worried you.

I don't think this is anything new. There have been ads for Google adsense in since around the time the program started.

[7_Driver]

I can't for the life of me see what people are complaining about.

Most other ad networks advertise in the space whenever they feel like it, call it "unsold", and pay you nothing.

Anybody can advertise on your site through AdWords (except Adult etc etc) - why not Google?