I have something else to add. "Sponsored links" is a very good heading for Google to have put on their advertisements. Thinking back before I knew anything else about the sponsored listings to the right of the search results, the message to me was that those companies had money, and therefore seemed like authority sources. See, people who never did any advertising don't know how cheap it can be.
I don't click them often, only when something seems very interesting and is non-commercial. I also don't click them if the site displaying them is annoying me.
I click on them too. Sometimes I just look at everyones sig and look around the site and click on em' if they interest me The ads do interest me or make me curious aside from helping a fellow "adsenser" out lot's of kids and high school teens don't know what adsense is about, none of my teen family members new what adsense was about Neither did I until I found out.
I click if I like the ad and want to know more about what on it .. but not always just once a year lol ...
Well, for me I click only if the ads look interesting. And if i feel that I want to donate to the webmaster, lol
I click on adsense when I want to suppor the website/author. I click the adsense on this website because I know the revenue goes to the members. I don't, however, click on ads to see what the advertiser is offering. I just click ad and close pop up real fast lol.
It doesn't earn anyone any money to close it real fast. And what you're doing is wrong. Adsense ads don't interest me, I never click on them.
What an idiot Your "support" is just wasting the advertisers money. People like you are the ones that cause smartpricing for publishers.
If I was Google I'd be careful about putting AdSense on YouTube. I would probably use it to drive customers to my myriad other services instead.
I don't think becoming an adsense publisher changed my clicking at all. If it's of interest, I click. Same as before. I definately recognize the ads more now though.
Likewise, I am always spotting out adsense spots, and noting the techniques used to hide the ads in the site content.