Over the past few days, Google has changed the way AdSense ads are displayed on publisher web sites - Accidental clicks fade into the background. This change will definitely lead to a decrease in the click-thru rate on most web sites but will it affect the overall earnings of those accounts? That remains to be seen. I will be keeping a close watch on my AdSense account and will provide an update after a few days when I have definite numbers.
Google AdSense display change - No clickthru on ad backgrounds
The latest change on AdSense ad displays is disallowing clickthru on ad backgrounds. Earlier, the background of all ad units was clickable; i.e. clicking on the space beside the ad in the unit would take one to the advertiser web site - check image below.
The new change restricts the click area to only the ad title and the URL which means the text description is not clickable - refer image below.
I had begun noticing this change on some pages and some ad units. In fact, when a page had two ad units, the change generally applied to one of the units but from today, it's there on all ad formats.
This change in the clickthru area was done to reduce accidental clicks and stem the growth of Made For AdSense (MFA) web sites, which Google thinks lead to a lot of unintentional mouse clicks.
AdSense clickthru area change - My 2 cents
My first reaction to this change was, quite obviously, not very pleasant - I suppose my earnings are going to fall. Also, not making the text description clickable leaves me feeling bitter. The description is a part of the ad... isn't it... why should it not lead to clickthrus? For instance, the entire area of an image ad is clickable, so why remove the text description from being a link?
However, a few quiet minutes of "deeper" assessment of this latest change brought in these thoughts.
- Less accidental clicks would mean visitors would stick around the site longer.
- It is beneficial for the whole system. I suppose advertisers would be better off with intentional and purposeful clicks than accidental ones. Note: there would be no ads to display if there are no advertisers, hence, it is but natural that Google takes proactive steps to implement changes in the interest of the advertisers.
- This can lead to a higher conversion rates. Also, advertisers might spend more for each ad because now the leads would be from people who have shown a genuine curiosity in the advertised product/service. Thus, the earning from one click might rise.
- The AdSense clickthru rate (CTR) would not decrease substantially on web sites that have clearly demarcated the advertisements by having a clear border or a background color different from the page background color or both. I suppose websites on which AdSense ads have been blended would definitely see a fall in the CTR. This is quite in contrast to what Google support has been telling us all along - that we need to blend the ads on web pages.
- The change might result in a double-edged sword for Google - though on one hand they are making efforts to better the system (and please the advertiser), a lower CTR on many web site (that have blended the ads as per Google support suggestions) would result in a lowering of returns. Unless, Google starts taking a larger share of the earnings from the ads, they might not be able to show a healthy increase in profit. This means publishers would see a further decrease in earnings and this just might prompt some to shift to other advertising networks or get direct advertisers.
- I also expect a perceptible decrease in clickthru on large box ad formats displayed at the left (or right) of the web page heading/paragraph. These ad placements are popular on high content web sites because they are at the hottest place on the web page heat map.
- Ad placements that are prone to accidental clicks would take a severe beating. Though this is against the Google TOS, we still see ads near the navigation, right scrollbar, close to game elements etc.
- So people who have ad formats and placements that are susceptible to accidental clicks have to take (high time) important decisions on changing these on their web sites or getting out of the AdSense network. And this takes us back to the MFA point - This change in ad display is to throw out web sites generating a lot of clicks with no benefit to the advertiser.
- The first problem I see is with the font size of text, particularly the URL, which is very small on some ad formats (the smaller ones) and, thus, is difficult to click. Advertisers may not be happy if their ads are not easy to click. This displeasure would also come from publishers whose web sites get less net savvy visitors on the less dexterous (such as the elderly).
- Displaying only one ad on a large format would waste a lot of valuable space on the web page but results in an increase in font sizes (easier to click) and a maybe (just maybe) a better return for the publisher.
- The thing is, AdSense ads provide no visual clues for clickable areas except for the URL which is underlined and if the URL is very small and difficult to click, the click thru would definitely fall. Also any call to action phrases embedded in the text description will be rendered useless with this latest change.
FYI, Google had implemented the same change in clickable area on the Adwords program in April 2007 (Two changes to how top ads are displayed). However, these ads have a larger font size for the title and the URL than the ones on some AdSense formats.
