I'm dup-contenting here (originally posted this on my blog) but I'm curious to see if this is pretty standard with others' ad-clicking behavior. I've noticed that there's a conscious trend I follow when clicking on adsense ads found on a page, broken up into several situations. 1) Situation 1: I really like the page that I’ve visited. If I’m really impressed with the page I’m viewing, I’ll click an ad on the page, regardless of what it’s for. In fact, if I really like the page, I’ll even try to pick what I think is the highest CPC-bidding ad. Eg. I’ll click on “Sign up for the Capital One card today†rather than “Looking for US Capitols? Find it on eBay.†2) Situation 2: The page is so-so, but there are interesting ads. This method probably most accurately reflects what Google would like to see in ad-clicking. If I see an interesting ad, sometimes I click it, but no guarantees. 3) Situation 3: The page is so-so, but I see an ad for a company I dislike. This will guarantee I click that ad. Why? It’s costing the advertising company, which I dislike, money. Simple enough. 4) Situation 4: Stinky page, either great or stinky ad. Will not click on an ad, no matter how interesting it is, simply because I do not want to reward the creator of a stinky page with ad revenue. Anybody do the same thing? I'm curious, so replies are appreciated. Thanks!
if everybody would do what you do in situation 3, then i would be making a awfull lot of money with reating a site with crap content
I really only ever click on an ad if it's something that interests me. I guess because my full-time job is on the advertiser side and there's nothing worse than paying for a bunch of worthless clicks that have no chance of ever converting.
One reason i dont link my sites on my signature, i dont want any webmasters clicking on my ads just cause they find my site useful...
Agreed. Fortunately Google knows if an IP just keeps clicking on ads all day long and wont count them, but other networks don't have this technology.
If you are a webmaster type of person you don't click ads cause you are already comfortable finding what you are looking for. Clicking ads is for regular people and still a lot of people use ad blockers. This kind of advertisement is doomed. I don't remember when was the last time I clicked an ad.
@ahuddy: Agreed. But I think that if a large number of users were doing the same thing (even if it's only a small percentage of the online population, it could still be a lot of users...) it would skew Google's ad data. @maxerg: I agree - when I see companies using Adwords to advertise, I generally assume their product isn't good enough to be worth SEOing for what I'm looking for. Besides, it seems like the ad quality on Adwords has gone downhill over time. Maybe I'm just tired of seeing them...