After more than two weeks and no more pictures or graphics by my AdSense blocks, my CTR's have only dropped about 1% since removal of them. Now were I getting 1000 clicks a day, I might be upset about that, but since my traffic at my main site is only about 350 uniques a day, that amounts to about 3 clicks a day potentially lost. Were those clicks each worth a dollar it would add up quickly though.
I find it interesting that Google feels that surfers might be fooled into clicking on an ad by using "misleading" graphics. By using "good blending" are we not trying to "fool" them, which is fine to do and in fact Google even tells you how to do it? If that were not the case, then ad blocks with huge pink borders would work just as well as the good blending techniques do in "fooling" someone into clicking on an ad would not be done by all of us using the program?
To me the pictures and graphics were nothing more than attention grabbers like ad banners (before the advent of banner blindness) do with bright colors, flashing graphics, etc. You never thought that you weren't clicking on an ad, but it "caught your attention", and I feel in most cases short of the "pointing arrows or click me to support this site" type graphics, it was no different by lining graphics up with the ad blocks.
It was simply a eye catcher to say to the visitor, "hey I'm an ad but I might have what your looking for so look here before you continue on down the page". It's just using good advertisement techniques. How are they any different than the backgrounds for ad blocks that draw a persons attention to them but those are still OK? Next to them, under them, what's the difference? I'm guessing this will rage on for a while as the rules continue to evolve. I guess I give the average surfer more credit than that.
I just checked my CTR's for yesterday and they were up 2% from the previous two days. I'm starting to think my initial data that told me the pictures helped increase my CTR's was flawed, at least on my main site, as removing the pictures and graphics has not made enough difference to really matter. I'm sure with every site that this will vary, but what it does at least say is that with good blending, the pictures only marginally helped improve it beyond that for me. I know when I first started to blend last year, my CTR's quadrupled immediately following and with some final adjustments after that, increased another 1% to where they currently are. I guess I just need to find another adjustment to get another 1 or 2% back now
It'll be interesting to compare a full months worth of data to see if that trend holds. Then at least if it does, there will be less to be angry about for those that thought the pictures made a "big difference" all things being equal over good quality blending alone.
Technorati Tags: AdSense, AdSense Graphics, AdSense Pictures
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