Forum Moderators: martinibuster
wonder if this type of "technique" allowed or not? should we report to google or not this type of web (which sort of like stealing google money and cheating users to click on it)
ps: pm me if u wanna get a feel how the site i mentioned.
I'll perhaps go one step further than you, incrediBILL, and suggest that blending ads and confusing users are two separate things. Blending ads is usually a good thing, confusing users is usually a bad thing. The former is a matter of good design, of presenting a honest, professional, aesthetically pleasing site that offers the visitor a smorgasbord of choices (on and offsite) of where to go next. The latter is about using deception and cheap tricks to get clicks.
However, I don't think it is easy to define the difference, as the boundary between the two is blurred and there is some subjective judgement involved.
Oh well
Ann
actually i wonder also, did Google trace how many ads a person click on?
Good Grief! I do run on...:)
Ann
Deceptive ad placement *IS* blending.
You deceive the users "banner blindness" by blending it into the site.
Nothing new here, nothing to see, move along people ;)
I think they're different.
Blending makes you notice the ad, as you say by circumventing ad blindness, but you still realise it's an ad.
Deception makes you notice the ad, but you don't realise it's an ad (eg by masking the 'ads by google', or causing confusion in the layout).
let say when user visit a site (which contained google ads), a little devil in his heart might say, "don't clik the ads, don't let him(site owner) earn money, his site is nothing, empty)
well, probably, an angel in his heart might say, "don't simply click on the ads, the advertiser will need to pay the site owner, unless u really want to look at the ads, otherwise, don't click"
these 2 factors will actually affect whether the visitors to click on the ads or not, which also makes ads viewing not so natural. because the visitor know there are consequences after they click on the ads.
thats why, when we click on the ads (accidentally or was unaware that is google ads), we tend to angry, because we know the site owner get the money, but we are sort of like being cheated.
eg. we r in site ABC, site has link that titled [Free Hosting], so we thought the free hosting is offered by site ABC, but when we click on the link, it directs us to another page which is not a page designed by site ABC, and we felt angry coz sort of like being cheated.
i guess to play fair, i think is to blend the ads into site design, so that it looks natural (to get over the barrier), but never trick the user/visitors to have an impression that those google ads link are inbound site link. i guess visitors should be made aware that clicking the google ads link would take them out of their current viewing site.
just my 2 cents.
[edited by: masterkongfu at 11:48 pm (utc) on Oct. 14, 2005]
let say when user visit a site (which contained google ads), a little devil in his heart might say, "don't clik the ads, don't let him(site owner) earn money, his site is nothing, empty)well, probably, an angel in his heart might say, "don't simply click on the ads, the advertiser will need to pay the site owner, unless u really want to look at the ads, otherwise, don't click"
I think webmasters might think this way sometimes about other sites, but regular users (non webmasters) probably don't think about it at all. It's just whether a link looks like it will lead to something they're interested in. If it does great, if it doesn't they move on.
However, if the ad links are confusing and look like site navigation, and don't lead them to where they expected, then they might just leave the site, and not be too happy with it.
However, if the ad links are confusing and look like site navigation, and don't lead them to where they expected, then they might just leave the site, and not be too happy with it.
That probably doesn't matter to the AdSense publisher who's trying to attract a user from a search engine, get an AdSense click, and never see the visitor again.
One other thing that publishers might want to keep in mind, though, is that advertisers can block domains (or avoid whole countries) that repeatedly send them non-converting traffic.
