Ever wonder what the gurus are actually doing with their Adsense placements that makes so much money? Well here's a screenshot of one such site so you can see for yourself! Look at the left navigation at the top, under "Topics." Yep, looks like Adsense ads disguised as navigation links! Think it would be worth trying something like that? Or only if you make lots of money for Google, so that they have an incentive to let you use such tactics? [P.S. I have some more screenshots in my latest blog post.]
Link ads work absolutely horrible for me too - although when I do get clicks they seem to pay decent. Also link ads require 2 clicks - one on your site and one from the subsequent results page - before you get revenue.
I don't think so, but the Adsense gurus are "gurus" for a reason... *in this case, by "guru" I mean scammer
it might be questionable but i don;t think its illegal. if ads can be blended within the content of the body, i don;t see anything wrong blending this link unit in nav sidebar. i would say its pretty smart idea. i will give that a try myself to se how it works. typically link units are not my fav, but this looks like worth a try btw MTbiker, good find
I think the text link ad's are not that great. When a user clicks on them they do not automatically count as a click. The users is presented with a search page (just like google search) with advertisements and if then if they click on those advertisements in that ad block then your created. You should do some investigation and set up a custom channel with just the text ad's to see the real payout on them. Most of the time they pay just as much as adsense for search which is low amounts.
I find the text-link ads actually perform quite well. Depends on your niche. As for the blending of the ads into the nav, the only naughty wit the posted screen shot is the fact that it site in a sidebar labelled as topics, which could be seen as misleading. See it quite a lot though. At least there is a little space around the ads to make them slightly less like they are part of the main nav.
I've always wondered... when someone clicks through and then clicks one of the ads in the results are you paid more? The ads are showing up on google itself and the cpc is much higher on google.com rather than on our sites. Just wondering if someone has experience with this..
We have found that PPC was good in the beginning, but for us, plastering a site with one sponsor works better overall. We call this OSL ( One Sponsor Logic) Does OSL strategy work for anybody else?
just found out its joel comm's site. if joel comm put the ad there, then its more than legal. and i bet he's making a LOT with that link unit otherwise he would not keep it there
I think pulling tricks like that ruins your sites image. If your website has a loyal user base, I don't think you should do this. No real popular site (like Digg, facebook, can't think of anymore off the top of my head) places ads in deceptive places becuase they have such high traffic anyways, there is no need to do it. but for the run of mill site its okay..
Reeeeeally. Well, nice to meet you as well! I've never heard any objections from Google about blending AdLinks with navigation. They don't perform that great though. Considered removing them at times. If Google asked, I wouldn't have a problem with it. the real money is in the inline ads. Joel