Google Updates AdSense Rules, Still Working on Radio

Photocritic writes "The practice of placing images above or next to adsense banners has been around for a while — the idea is to trick visitors into thinking that the Googe Ads are clickable image captions. Unsuspecting visitors click on the ads, and the webmasters make money. Now, Google has officially announced that the practice is no longer allowed. Meanwhile, the Marketwatch site is reporting that the company's previously discussed move into radio advertising is getting a mediocre reaction. Google, as yet, does not have enough access to airtime for the project to be profitable. The company plans on purchasing more airtime to expand the program, and is reportedly also looking to begin selling television ads as well." From the article: "Until Google can strike a deal with CBS, or some other radio giant, 'there will be no significant impact until mid-2007' on Google's bottom line, or the radio industry in general, [analyst Jordan] Rohan said in his research note. 'We believe a critical mass of advertisers is interested in testing the platform,' Rohan said, based on his interviews with his own sources. 'However, there is simply not enough radio inventory in the Google Audio system (yet) to enable buyers to run campaigns.'"

Re:Good idea, but...

[ubergenius]

I know that I don't fully trust AdSense. I used to use AdSense, but stopped when I kept paying lots of money for ads continuously clicked from a select number of website (don't remember the URLs off the top of my head, and I don't feel like scouring my logs right now) that never went anywhere after the initial click. It was a click, then leave, over and over and over again, hundreds of times. It was obvious someone was clicking just to get their sites money from AdWords, but I still had to pay every click. So, I payed what was owed and cancelled all my campaigns, and haven't been back since.

Re:Good idea, but...

[Electrum]

I know that I don't fully trust AdSense. ... It was obvious someone was clicking just to get their sites money from AdWords ... I payed what was owed and cancelled all my campaigns, and haven't been back since.

AdWords is for advertisers, AdSense is for webmasters. As an advertiser, you have the option of only paying for Google search traffic (plus optionally partner search like AOL). If you don't like AdSense traffic at all, disable it for your campaigns. AdWords now allows you to block poor converting AdSense domains through the web interface.

Re:Is it worth it?

[tlhIngan]

Satellite radio is subscription based, but increasingly also carries advertisements. Kind of like cable TV.

Not really. Satellite radio gets its programming from two sources - in house, and 3rd party. In house stuff is supposed to remain commercial free. It's the 3rd party stuff that carries ads, because the 3rd party supplies them. Clear Channel, for example, supplies content for several XM channels. They were initially commercial free, but then CC decided to put ads on. XM scrambled to setup new channels to replace them with in-house programming similar in style. So the CC-produced stuff has ads, while the inhouse stuff doesn't.

Also, since most of the talk radio is syndicated from 3rd parties, you'll have ads there, while the inhouse produced talk radio isn't (like why you don't have ads on Stern (Sirius) or Ron & Fez and the like, but on channels like CNN, BBC, etc. you have ads).

The easiest way to find out what is produced in house vs. 3rd party on satellite radio is checking out the online offerings - XM and Sirius don't have online redistribution rights to most 3rd-party produced channels, just on-air rights. So you won't find CNN/BBC/ESPN/etc. on their online offerings (but of course, Stern/Ron&Fez).

Re:Good idea, but...

[onepoint]

what you say is absolutely true. Quality of the click is what counts. As an AdSense publisher, I tuned my site and made it attractive for some advertisers. over the long run I don't have as many clicks for them, but they are getting quality visitors ( maybe 2 to 3 a day ).

one advertiser call me directly and told me that my visitors that I have sent convert 50% of the time and that he was going to become a long term advertiser on my site. ( his ad's shows up on my site just about every day on the top).

my site was not designed for AdSense, but it was designed for my needs, but I am glad that the local advertisers that use Google are also making some money.

Mike