We are all in agreeance then... "size doesn't matter"..... 30 would be fine even. 50 is excessive and the 255 characters in the body seem like a lot as well.
WE NEED 30!!!!!! I think we should follow the adwords model. Google thinks that 25 is plenty and that is for people who are paying money! Why should we abuse the layout of each others websites by using exaggerated anchor text. We should appreciate the network for just giving us this cost/time effective link resource... instead of trying to suck every character out of it to gain.
You can't go by the Poll results Shawn. You didn't offer us the 30 character alternative. I didn't vote because there wasn't an alternative I could support. I would interpret the poll results to mean the majority of respondents favor a shorter anchor text and because you only offered 40 they were forced to vote for that when all they really were indicating is that they favor shorter.
Most of the ads I see on my site seem to have pretty brief anchor text and all of mine are short, so I vote for the shorter limit of 40. It doesn't seem like it will inconvenience too many folks.
30 in the link text sounds better I like the idea of the email to everyone notifying of updates. Regards the description, Google quotes around 130-150 in its snippet, yahoo can quote over 300. Most of my traffic through Google, so as long as there are around the 130ish mark, my optimised descriptions have the potential of being ranked on Google in their own right if websites choose to show them. Since Google considers its description good enough to "sell" a page to users, I can only but agree.
I can read that. But the point is that the majority of the people who have responded to this thread have favored thirty. Look a DazzlinDonna. Voted for 40 because that was the only choice, but would really like 30. If you've already made up your mind then just change the damn thing and don't ask for opinions.
40 sounds real good, as a start (but I will vote for 30 next time ) There are too many long and "spammy" links showing at the bottom of my pages now.
I would vote for 30 or 25... Sometimes my website shows 2 lines of anchor text just because of those long anchor text strings... Does really anyone search for so many words at once? :S
I'm one who takes full advantage of what is offered or given to me. I utilized and believe me, fully utilized the 50. If I was given 40, I would do the same, as with 30. I wouldn't care. I personally joined the co-op ad network (and I though most everyone else did too...) for the IBL's and anchor text credits. Thus, cosmetic reasons were the farthest from my mind. I surely didn't do it for the click thrus as the network spans all kinds of sites and target audiences without focus. Now if the network could be category or audience based, then that would be different. But as of now, Adwords, which IS based on target, is based solely on CLICK THRUS, POSITIONING and/or REVENUES and so the look matters more to those showing the ads -- I would prominently display those ads since they are on target with my business . . . anything else that isn't on target doesn't get top billing. To me, comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges...
I'd say 40 as a choice there, but 30 would be acceptable. However, I don't think it should go any lower, as some of my anchor text can be as high as 27ish.
Sounds fine to me. Cosmetically, 50 chars is a pain. It might actually reduce coop overhead too, so hey I'm up for that. I must say though - reducing the text component to 128 chars is prolly a bit much. Perhaps just a 25% reduction rather than 50%. After all, text boxes are very different, and don't need to fit into a footer along with a number of other links. As a webmaster I'd like to be able to utilize the text ad option to it's fullest where wm's are willing to carry them. Shawn, you could have the best of both worlds here - they are after all, two totally different classes of ad. Cheers, JL
The description definitely needs to come down in size to some level. 255 characters actually makes the ad become larger than 468x60. That's the main issue for me.
I vote for lowering the length to 40, It's plenty and easier to fit it into a site cosmetically. (basically what everyone else has said)
I would have voted for 30 if it was an option. The above sentence contains 46 chars (counting spaces and the period). That's quite long for a link. Even 30 chars is pretty long IMO.