According to ProBlogger Darren Rowse Google are going to change the rules for Adsense publishers by limiting what areas of an ad are clickable. Going are the days when a click anywhere within the block counted, visitors will now have to either click the ad title or the URL at the bottom in order for you to earn money.
I’ve got mixed feelings about this one, in the short term I expect to lose money. It’s not that I built MFA websites or deliberately try to mislead visitors it’s just that a certain percentage of any Adsense publishers clicks must come from accidental clicking. On the other hand if it improves the quality of the ad network as a whole then bid prices will naturally go up over time resulting in more bang for you legitimate clicks. As an Adwords publisher it’s not going to affect me at all, I experimented for a long time with the content network (Adsense) but CTR and ROI were soo bad each time that I gave up. Who knows if Google can improve this it might be worth looking at again. Also the fact that Google are still tweaking Adsense gives me hope that they are not going to phase out pay-per-click adverts quite yet.
Overall I think the biggest losers here are going to be the people who insist on churning out MFA spam websites so that’s not a bad thing for the rest of us.
Here are a couple of things to keep in mind as Google roll out the new rules:-
1. I’m assuming images will remain entirely clickable, is it worth reconsidering accepting image ads?
2. It is now even more important than ever to make sure your ad titles look like standard web links.
3. With this extra level of targeting before a click counts is it worth swapping out PPC blocks for CPA?
One Response to “Google Changes The Rules For Adsense Publishers”
jackbravo
November 14, 2007
So about your content advertising – did you decide just to stick with search? T
he reason I ask is I’ve spent (uhmmm….lost) 45 bux using the search option on my apparently terribly written ads.
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