New adsense format(?)

Banned 13 years ago

The BIG question is, how to put the underline back on the text ads.

Without the ad hyperlink being underlined it just looks like a plain text <h1> tag. Nobody is going to click something that looks like plain text.

I hope Google is doing this as short term testing. The holidays will be here soon, which is usually higher CTRs.

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GyuMan82

13 years ago

I've removed Adsense on most of my websites that have them already, and the few remaining I shall remove as well here shortly.

Each new design get worse and worse and screams "HEY THIS IS A F*#KING AD!!!"

Gone are the days of "blending", now these things are just eye sores.

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paulgl 13 years ago

How are the ad rates affected? Now only one (it seems) gets a
full ad. The rest just a title that signals nothing...and I mean
NOTHING. If I did not know adsense, I'd have no idea what the
heck that was...

Might make me go to ad formats that are prone to get just
one ad anyway.

That arrow sucks big time as well.

I know google does research and has the best on the hunt, but
dang, this is quite a change.

Gotta hope google knows best on this one.

Paul
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- yukon Banned 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by paulgl
  
  The rest just a title that signals nothing...and I mean
  NOTHING.
  
  That's what I'm seeing on my sites, it's all BIG text that doesn't even look like it's clickable, unless the cursor is hovering over the text.
  
  Looks like an <h1> text.
  
  I'm not seeing any of the arrows on my sites.
  
  Looks like it would hurt the advertisers CTR/sales, nobody will click that stuff when it looks like regular text.
  
  Thanks
  
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timpears

13 years ago

So what are your AdSense revenues like? How has this affected your income from AdSense?

I don't have AdSense running on any of my blogs currently, so I was unaware of the change.

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jasondinner

13 years ago

It looks gross. But then again they're in the business of generating as much revenue from advertisers as possible, so I would imagine they want to keep their CTR up to keep the money coming in.

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yukon

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by jasondinner

It looks gross. But then again they're in the business of generating as much revenue from advertisers as possible, so I would imagine they want to keep their CTR up to keep the money coming in.

Which was my point above.

My ads look like plain text, they don't look like a clickable link until the cursor is hovering over the Adsense ad.

Nobody will try & click on something that looks like this: Allstate Insurance

It looks like plain text wrapped in an <h> tag. That doesn't help an advertisers CTR. The lower the Adsense CTR, the lower the advertisers conversion rate. If nobody clicks, nobody buys...

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RobinInTexas 13 years ago

I haven't checked any of my adsense sites lately, but I'm getting more or less what I have considered the customary adsense on the sites that I visit.

I'll search for a coffee maker and get endless Keurig ads everywhere until I search for something else. :rolleyes:
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jasondinner

13 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

Which was my point above.

My ads look like plain text, they don't look like a clickable link until the cursor is hovering over the Adsense ad.

Nobody will try & click on something that looks like this: Allstate Insurance

It looks like plain text wrapped in an <h> tag. That doesn't help an advertisers CTR. The lower the Adsense CTR, the lower the advertisers conversion rate. If nobody clicks, nobody buys...

Yeah it looks like garbage. And I've seen a dramatic drop in CTR literally overnight from about 7.11% on average all month down to 4.45% and a drop on my high volume site (10K-15K page views per day) from 61 cents to 52 cents per click.

Needless to say when ur averaging over $500 a day in adsense and you do less than half overnight because of some design change (or flaw) in their text ad units, it's kind of annoying.

However, another reason why everybody in their right mind should never ever put all of their eggs in Google's basket aside from the obvious ones.

It's just bonus money for me anyway but I like it and want it to keep on coming so I hope they can take the feedback and data and make proactive adjustments to balance everything out.

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Sophie M

13 years ago

My CTR has dropped from 6%+ to barely 2% on all of my sites in various niches, so almost 3 times. These ads do not get clicks - as from the reviews on their official page, looks like people are concerned about CTRs having dropped dramatically: https://plus.google.com/+AdSense/posts/UDr2a6cZjZz

So for Google, this means a huge drop in their earnings. I wonder what silent goals Google has this time if they decide to keep this format - maybe they have some backup ideas that would keep their earnings the same with lower CTR, or even increase them... Will be very interested to watch this to see what direction it will take. And until they figure it, let's hope people will start clicking as they used to...

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jxam69

13 years ago

I'm happy for Google to test new ways of making advertising more effective.

My guess is that they have data to support the roll-out.

I'll be looking forward to seeing what the CTRs look like over the next few days.

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Carl Brown

13 years ago

It doesn't look like "regular text" if you make them "hyperlink blue." Most people understand that. Maybe the curiosity factor will cause them to run the mouse over and click. It does look ugly though.

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yukon

Banned 13 years ago

Originally Posted by Carl Brown

It doesn't look like "regular text" if you make them "hyperlink blue." Most people understand that. Maybe the curiosity factor will cause them to run the mouse over and click. It does look ugly though.

So everyone has to run a white background?

Most of my sites are dark background colors on the web pages, so blue text/link ads isn't an option.

Ugh..., getting tired of dealing with Googles/Adsense crappy test at my expense.

First they ditched Feedburner/email/Adsense which I was banking with for a long time, it was more profitable than the actual websites that the email list were built on, $5-$10 CPC wasn't unusual. Then they come out with the giant arrows, that did boost the website CTR. Now all I see is big azz plain text looking ad links (no arrows).

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paulgl 13 years ago

Carl Brown: I don't want curious clickers messing with
my adsense, nor do I need curious clickers. You said it
best: UGLY. Dang ugly.

But I gotta keep going at your curious clickers thing.
It actually makes sense, but in a negative way. Thing
is, I want SERIOUS clickers, and I think google does too.
But I see that "curious" and this new format go hand in
hand. I don't know what they are thinking.

Only thing I can think of off the top of my head, is that
google is forcing adwords users to get serious about that
title text. Maybe that is a good thing. Eventually. I mean I
have seen some downright idiotic title text, that by itself means
nothing. Case in point, #3 on an ad I just pulled up says:
Central Plant Experts

WTF does that mean with no ad text? Surfed another page:
Human Capital Development

Curious? Well, sure...but would I waste time clicking? And who
cares if I did? I would surf right out and the site would get
an invalid click.

Tried one more, and this is a laugher:
Trouble Communicating?

ROTFLMAO! What kind of ad is that?

They just gotta add some text, or the title had better be spot on.

Maybe there will be a premium placed on the first ad.....that might
be a good thing...

Paul
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dennis09

13 years ago

Im not seeing any drastic changes overall on my end, but a few sites have indeed seen an increase in ctr's. My theory on this is that they may be trying to combat ad blindness. The dropdown appears to mimic a few popular content display widgets. With some crafty positioning I can really see news style sites getting a huge boost from this. Most of the feedback I'm seeing also seems to be reporting positive results rather than negative. Ultimately they should just give webmasters the courtesy of choosing the display that works best for them seeing as a one size fits all solution would be virtually impossible.

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jasondinner

13 years ago

Whats really interesting (and funny) is they havent even updated their "view examples of ad sizes and types" page.

It's still showing the old better performing text ad unit look:
https://support.google.com/adsense/a...ww-ww-et-asfe_

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jasondinner

13 years ago

Looks like the performance of 300x250 and 728x90 have flipped flopped for me. The 300x250 is killing it and it's below the fold!

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patco

13 years ago

I am not using Adsense since maybe 1 year, but can't you control the design? With simple CSS?

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jxam69 13 years ago

Originally Posted by patco

I am not using Adsense since maybe 1 year, but can't you control the design? With simple CSS?

No - you can't restyle the ads without permission.

You can only use the limited set of styling options in your Adsense account which includes basic font and color settings.
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Moneymaker2012

13 years ago

I hope Google is doing this as short term testing.

I hope the same, what ever google does is always short term. It's most regularly updated search engine

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akarshnagariya

13 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Been on vacation for 3 weeks...not been around the WF much.
Not sure if anyone posted this.

Just noticed some new adsense looks. I hate it, to tell you the truth.
Only the top add in a box with multiples shows. The rest, the user must
click and arrow. Not good at first glance.

But, after double looking, perhaps just a title is better if they tweak it
a bit. Right now, it just looks odd.

Paul

but now Adsense have changed all that styles and new styles are in the form of title which seems like drop down menu,I think Adsense has focused on blogs that's why new formats seems like tags.I would recommend that adsense Display ads are better and clicked as compare to text ads.just place one or two ads for the impressions on high traffic website or even blog also

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Adam Curry

13 years ago

Am I the only one benefiting from this new change? CTR has shot up and earnings almost doubled now

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Sophie M

13 years ago

Guys - I have spent some time analyzing the new ads and I think I know where the problem is in having the CTRs dropped so drastically.

For the bigger ad sizes (300*600, 250*250, 200*200), 90% of the time we now get a SINGLE ad displayed in a huge font, in that big area (with lots of white unused space left), instead of multiple ads that used to be there before. For example - my two best performing sizes were 250*250 and 300*600. Now, whenever I load any of my pages, I get a single ad in the 300*600 area 19 times out of 20. Same happens with the 250*250 size - they now show just a single ad in that big area, in huge font and that makes it an obvious problem: if a visitor is not interested in that single ad, you "lose" it and waste your ad spot. That explains my huge drop in CTR as these sizes are the ones I use.

That also explains why some of us had an increase in CTR - I think this applies to those you were using smaller ad sizes such as 468*60 and similar - where there used to be 1-2 ads, now there are also 1-2 in there.

I truly hope Google notices this (as this also affects their own earnings!) and configures the system in a way so that bigger ad spots do not show just a single huge ad.

What are your thoughts on this?

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jxam69

13 years ago

I've noticed that some advertisers are already adapting to the new format.

I'm seeing ads with teaser headlines such as "What You Don't Know About" where you have to mouse-over to find out what it is they're talking about.

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