Google Experimenting with AdSense
February 26th, 2007 by John Hok
Chances are, if you’re reading my blog, you probably know about Google AdSense already.
“Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website’s content pages and earn money.” - Quoted from the Google AdSense homepage
The major reason that Google AdSense has been such a big success is because it’s very easy for publishers to integrate the content based ads into their existing site. The ads easily fit because the colours of the ad unit and the text can be changed to match the site. This has presented Google with a problem. Sometimes the units are so well integrated that it can be confusing for visitors to distinguish the site’s content from the advertising units and as a result, some visitors that click the ads are not those who are genuinely interested in the advertiser’s site. Advertisers, who are paying Google per click, are loosing out because these visitors that AdSense draws are not genuine visitors; they were directed into clicking because they were confused.
So what is Google’s solution? They incorporate unique branding styles into their ads in an effort to distinguish the ads more from the publisher’s page as well as experimenting with different ad styles from time to time. Probably one of the most famous ad brandings that Google has done and, I’m sure you have seen, are the “Ads by Goooooooooogle”. That probably worked for awhile, but eventually “ad blindness” kicks in and users don’t really notice it anymore.
So Google has gone back to the drawing board and here are just some of the variations I have spotted around the Internet and my own websites.
Chances are, if you’re reading my blog, you probably know about Google AdSense already.
“Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads on their website’s content pages and earn money.” - Quoted from the Google AdSense homepage
The major reason that Google AdSense has been such a big success is because it’s very easy for publishers to integrate the content based ads into their existing site. The ads easily fit because the colours of the ad unit and the text can be changed to match the site. This has presented Google with a problem. Sometimes the units are so well integrated that it can be confusing for visitors to distinguish the site’s content from the advertising units and as a result, some visitors that click the ads are not those who are genuinely interested in the advertiser’s site. Advertisers, who are paying Google per click, are loosing out because these visitors that AdSense draws are not genuine visitors; they were directed into clicking because they were confused.
So what is Google’s solution? They incorporate unique branding styles into their ads in an effort to distinguish the ads more from the publisher’s page as well as experimenting with different ad styles from time to time. Probably one of the most famous ad brandings that Google has done and, I’m sure you have seen, are the “Ads by Goooooooooogle”. That probably worked for awhile, but eventually “ad blindness” kicks in and users don’t really notice it anymore.
So Google has gone back to the drawing board and here are just some of the variations I have spotted around the Internet and my own websites.
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5 Comments
If anyone has spotted some other ones, please feel free to give me the link to them and I will add it to the list.
What do you mean by that. Any way Nice to see another Rambling after John Chow’s
Hey John please update your content more often otherwise people wont come back
Good post! i like it. it is always good to know.
@Ajith: I’m still kinda new to blogs in general. I’ll try my best to get fresh content out as best I can! Also what I meant in my comments was that if you have seen different kind of Google Ad formats out there to get a screenshot of it and I will post up other formats because I’m sure I have missed out on many different ones that Google has experimented with.
@George C.: Thanks for your kind words George.