I found a simple way that doubled my CTR today. I have always had blended ads, good placement, etc. My CTR had lowered over the last month, so I wanted to change it. What I did was simple. The blended Google ads, as we know, are underlined, yet my site links never were. I just didn't like the look...but I "bit the bullet" and changed my CSS to underline them. This worked like a charm...for today. I'll post results as the days progress.
Well I'm looking forward for updates regarding these changes in your site. I just wish you won't be penalize for doing that.
Good work. Its not against TOS to have underlined links on your pages! It is against TOS to make your ads indistinguishable from the content of your site, it must be apparent they are separate to the main content, either with different shades of color, font size or positioning.
Just a little update, but first I have to laugh at those who believe that default (underlined) links are agaist TOS. Made my day! I started this yesterday and today my CTR is again twice what it was. It is now around 1.0%, which is what it used to be, until it droped to about 0.4%...again, this is whay I made this simple change. I'm quite pleased.
Google itself suggest to blend the color of ad with the color of the page text. NOt sure how it can be violation of TOS
this is a grey area and whether it is within or against TOS is the question. it is true that google suggest blending the ads but they also dont allow any ad code modification. you are not modifying the actual ad code but modifying your css file to do that which means indirectly you are modifying the adsense generated ad code. not sure google has any way to figure that out but if someone reports, there might be an issue.
underling is not against tos. you can blend your ads to your text. but u can't make look exactly like a google ad. that is why so many people get ban and don't know why.
You're way off. I altered my CSS to underline my site's links. It has no effect on the google ads! They are as they were.