Today while I was adding ad sense ad units to my websites I noticed that the link "Ads by Goo gle" is clickable on each ad unit, now they do not pay you when people click on this link, I wonder how much traffic are they getting from this link, of cource they do not pay for this link so do you feel like they are stealing your traffic? Just do the math, how much real estate is this taking from your site, if you have 3 ad units and 3 link units a link to Goo gle will appear 6 times in your website. Is this fair for webmasters?
if you calculate it, of course they do. impresion of ads take a traffic from us. thats why the paid for space in our site.
Well the advertisers pay for the ad space, they just provide the service, but I think that they should not make their logo clickable, they pay 0 for all the traffic they get from this.
That is actually a point you raised there! I will look more into this. Maybe one can make an issue out of it!
I wouldn't see it as stealing traffic... If someone clicks a link that says Google they want to go to Google... If the link wasn't there and they felt like going to Google they'd type the URL in anyways. There not really gaining traffic... Nor any branding... Everyone already knows what Google is.
That's an interesting piece of thinking. If I understand you well, any other brand would talk about branding, brand exposure or even brand recognition, but as it's the big G. they can do whatever they want, like promoting their AdSense or AdWords programs for free. Well, Adbrite does it too, and they don't offer referral retribution for that. There's no click stealing endeavour in here, but mere marketing. Anyway, by following that link, I saw something that's a bit more interesting: a link named "Send Google your thoughts on the site or the ads you just saw". That form enables your visitors to vote for your site according to its usefulness. It definitively must be a part of the AdWords blackbox. What do you think?
I believe that they pay you a referral fee if someone signs up after clicking through this link. TomG.
I used to think they paid for those clicks as well. If they don't, then YES it is stealing traffic. Isn't the space above the Google logo paid for?! Then why should their logo go for free. As some have pointed out here, they are big brotherand do what the FF they want, but that doesn't make it ethical....
We just can say that google is taking some advantage from their publisher. Or saying that they advertise their own ads on their publisher website for free. What can the publisher do is either accept it or leave adsense
Op's thought is well placed, particularly since google on its part does not pay anything to publishers to have its link on their sites. For just being the middle man, it seems to enjoy the double benefit, of having to retain the commission as well as free spaces on its publishers websites! Regards, RightMan
I don't think they pay for that, you don't get any commission for signing up advertisers with them (unlike other ad systems). It's just part of the price you pay - you're not tied to adsense, you can use other systems or sell ads yourself if your concerned about ad real-estate.
I think there is no such a words traffic stealing with adsense inventory,Google paid for impression and that what made pay per image with adsense sold
That's the way it is since the very beginning, even when they made an adsense referal available (now terminated for most publishers) you had to promote it with its own buttons/links and this ads by google linking to adsense never gave any advantage to the publishers. If there was any competition to adsense, things would be different, but adsense has dominated the PPC market ever since it started in 2003.
So what? They pay what they pay for what you get, including that 'free' link. If you but branded shirt with big logo on the front, you can say 'hey! pay me for that exposure, do you think it's free?". But better is if you find a shirt which suits you better, without 'free advertisements' unless you are big market player and you can do individual negotiations about terms of contract. If you are not, you get what you deserve.