Dear SEO's, This is my learning – from the blog directories, the blog user communities and the blogging experience that I’m part of. I hope this is of interest to all. One quick question – When you visit other blogs, apart from commenting, linking and of course reading, what else do you do? I was interested in the “ad clicking†part of it to be precise. I wonder how many of us actually click the ads on other blogs/sites? Let me assume – “Not very often†– for an answer. The reasons being that – Many of us are SEO’s and are well studied/aware of links/comments/post links/directory submissions/organic and inorganic traffic and all that stuff. All of us know about Google AdSense, how to brilliantly mask them in between our posts. All of us know how to distinguish between contextual ads and the rest of it. All of us are well aware of the Google ads – no matter how well they are masked in the posts/how attractive the images are those are put in line with them. All of us have Google Adsense in our site/blogs and expect all other visitors to click them while you wait.(Cleverly forgetting that they too are doing the same) Now I wouldn’t want to get over-enthusiastic and believe that 90% of bloggers(or those who manage to create a blog) are SEO’s and are looking for ways to earn money. There are genuine bloggers too who write genuine stuff related to their profession or interest. But the fact that all(almost) of them have Google AdSense on their blogs, disappoints me. If I take a wild guess that all the bloggers, who own a AdSense account are non-clickers and avoid ads on other sites/blogs – then the final question is – Who are the actual clickers on the ads? 1 – Are they novices who cannot distinguish between a well masked google ad rectangle and a genuine post? – If yes, what percentage of surfers are they? 2 – The clicks generated on the so-called “Ad gurus†sites are from genuine sources(novices as above said) or not? 3 – Now, you may argue that if “they†are making good money then there have to be clickers – be it novices or whatever. But, ignoring their fairly lower population, out of the other major chunk of pro-bloggers how many DO NOT avoid Google ads(unless in a revenue shared forum!) I’m worried the results will have to show some really disappointing figures – So I’ll leave it for you to zero in.
just because they're less likely to click doesn't mean they never do. I click ads on adsense occasionally when something interests me; otherwebmasters are the same. as long as there are ads that appeal to the visitors, clicks will happen. it's not hard to appeal to people that want to make money. it's true the ctr will be lower-- much lower-- but that doesn't mean it vanishes.