AS Doing Kanoodle Style Ads Now?

I captured this on my cc merchant account site yesterday:



So, uhhhh...we're soon going to have full URL's visible in the ads now? This is not good.

AmCy

 

I get url's on my skyscraper format text ads but haven't seen any reduction in CTR? In fact they get far higher CTR than the rest of my site which uses text banners, but I think thats more down to placement.

Cheers
BP

 

maybe this extra option for visitors help get more CTR, dont know if the visitors click on change ad, will it be counted as a click or not?

 

The "change ads" is new as well, but I was referring to the visible URL's in green at the bottom of each ad.

AmCy

 

Why do you think it will make much difference AmCy?

 

From my experience, communicating with many different folks all over the world in the forums I frequent, I know that there are people who can't stand seeing ads on a website (especially folks from the UK and Canada, for some reason .) People who hate ads may start typing the now visible AS ad URL's into their browsers directly instead of clicking the ad, just to spite the site owner. Am I paranoid for thinking this? Maybe. But I don't think I'm too far off base here.

AmCy

 

Ha ha. I suppose you are right. If I come across a hidden aff link, I´ll go straight to the site, bypassing the link. If the affiliate has been upfront about it, I´ll use his/her link. Weird, eh. People are a funny lot.

Maybe by the same token, more people will click on the urls because they are upfront and don´t look like disguised internals?

 

Hmmm...yes, I hadn't thought of it in that way. It's a valid argument, and I certainly hope that I'm wrong and you're right!



AmCy

 

Whats wrong with the URLS being visible?

 

They look like ads now ! 100% like ads, without the urls they looks like text or info links, to me with the green urls they stand-out saying I am an ad, and a LOT of folks will not click em now, but again I am only a bluegill and may be wrong, but I thing they look too much now like ads...... where before they could blend in a lot better with a site as content

 

Look at the AS code...

google_color_border = "XXXXXX";
google_color_bg = "XXXXXX";
google_color_link = "YYYYYY";
google_color_url = "ZZZZZZ";
google_color_text = "ZZZZZZ";

you can set the url colour to match the text colour, and the link colour to match whatever colour you use for your links on your site.

 

you can of course change the color of the url in your adsense settings.
[edit] critters beat me to the post..

 

If you don't like the urls being visible, go into your ad settings and change the colors to make the url text white so it's not seen, or make it very, very light grey so it's barely visible.

 

Despite the look to me that things are not changing in our favor, the stats tell me they are. Significantly!

 

I'm pretty sure that making the text the same colour as the background would make the Google God very angry. A nice light shade of grey is probably not a bad idea though

Cheers
BP

 

Matching the text colour will make it the least noticeable, users only tend to read the link anyways, and even a lighter colour like gray would draw attention to it.