I recently received the Inside Adsense newsletter sent by the good ol folks of Google on November 16, 2007. Besides introduction of the new Adsense design back in April, Google did other big things this year. They recently did a major Google Dance which left a huge number of local and international blogs affected in the PageRank – even me.
Yet, Google has put their foot in the door again. This time its to curb accidental clicks during the holiday season and future. If you’ve been a long time user of Google Adsense, you’ll realize most clicks may be generated either via click fraud or strategic placed ads. These strategic placed ads can be helpful or can be the cause of accidental clicks.
Google Adsense recommends several ad placements while the hot zones are the most popular. These hot zones mainly are to improve advertisement visibility. Plus, to me the better visibility equals to a better rate you get when users click on them. But that’s what I think.
So let’s say we have placed an inline rectangle ad into our content. Previously, the chances of click-through rates (CTR) are higher due to the accidental clicks. And to be frank, it’s these accidental clicks which have given me more income. But why is that?
It was because previous Google ads highlight the entire background as a large button. Thus, if the Google ad placement was positioned inline without any padding then the illusion of not activating an ad was higher. But the new Google ads with removal of the background will solve this problem. I know this is wrong to ask or do, but this is to show proof of the change. If you hovered your mouse on the Google ad description below, you’ll notice your mouse change from a white arrow to the typing icon.
Then it dawn on me, with the removal of the background many publishers may see a lower click-through rate this holiday season. There will be a lot less accidental clicks and more qualified clicks by users. Click-through which users have requested and not unintentionally.
I’ve no qualm regarding this matter but I do hope Google will reward its publishers with a higher earning because of this. Some publishers may have had the strategy of living on accidental clicks. These were their version of ‘strategically’ placed advertisements.
In the end, it was a good move from Google. I just hope my Google earnings won’t be overly affected by this in the holiday season and future. Therefore, it’s back to Google ad testing again for me.
[tags]Google Adsense, Adsense ad, ad placement, ad position[/tags]
So far no obvious change in my adsense earnings. How about you?
Not really very obvious yet. But this may only take a turn in a long duration.
another reason for google to reduce our cost per click.