This is interesting. Having just found a dead snake in the back garden (and we have brown snakes here, which kill) I was just researching how to get rid of them & ended up on this site. http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-i-get-rid-of-snakes.htm I've just never seen anything like it. The bullet points, the background, when you hover over the description it changes colour. But at the top it says 'ads by Google'. I'm very confused with this one.
Holy crap his CTR is prolly through the roof. If I didn't have ad-block even I'd have fallen for that. However his image is next to those, not sure if the bullets qualify as a clear border.
I almost fell for it & I reckon I'm pretty AS savvy these days. My mouse hovered over that link for a second & then I thought 'wait a minute'...and noticed the Ads By Google Text.
Heh DP takes the opposite approach and makes them stand out as much as possible (Just noticed I forgot to turn ad-block back on )
Well I've always been of the belief to make them stand out. Blend yes, but not make them out to be a part of the site. The reason being is that false clicks apparently can cause smart pricing, and I don't want that to happen. So I've always made it obvious that the ads are ads, and therefore if people click on them, they do so because they are interested in the product. However, at the encouragement of somebody. I have removed borders & will be interested to see what happens. I'm mid-way through changes, income has increased but I hate ripping off my visotors & Adwords customers. Because ultimately, if they get lots of false clicks, they will stop advertising, which hurts me. So I aim to look after the advertisers. Sucker I know.