Hello everyone, Since the time of the "curiosity clicks" announcement there was no official communication from Chitika here that would shed more light (are there Chitika officials reading this board, BTW?). So, I decided to post a comment on their blog site The comment is awaiting moderation at the moment, so I am really interested to see if they would actually post it and if they have anything to say in response. So, here is my comment:
They don't filter out clicks, they just prevent people from clicking by making the ads less attractive.
Exacty, there is no filter, the only change was that you now have to click either the price or the store, instead of the product description.
yeah - I think you're interpretting it all wrong. They changed the design - nothing else. ie they changed how much of the design was a link around so that there is a lower % of people clicking out of curiosity. Now people click something that is more explicitly a 'best deal'....so poeple looking for a deal click the ads rather than people just clicking for more information on the product. It's not a filtering system at all - purely a design change that is designed to send advertisers visitors who are more likely to be interested in a purchase.
This post would have to be rounded-up by saying that Chitika did (although indirectly) respond to my request to explain the "curiosity clicks" issue. They have updated their blog with a new post that addresses that. I do not agree with the way they did the change though, but this is their business, and it's a theme for a separate thread anyways.