Google Upgrades AdSense

An anonymous reader writes "According to a story in the New York Times, Google will now "give advertisers more control over where their ads are shown, how they pay for them and what they look like." Author John Battelle claims "The core philosophy of Google's advertising business is that these ads are actually valuable and useful to users: look for Chevy trucks and get Chevy truck ads. Now we are in another place. It's more about branding and more about advertising other things than what you are looking for, and, cynically, it may be about being a public company that needs revenue growth."" The other thing that other submitters noted was that AdSense would also be accepting graphical advertising as well; but for display on partner sites.

Comments

Non-registration links

[DeadSea]

Some registration free links:

• Search Engine Low Down - Google Tests Cost-Per-Impression Pricing and Targeting for AdWords
• San Jose Mercury News - Google changing the way ads are created, priced
• Silicon.com, UK - Google steps into banner ad world
• Houston Chronicle - Google testing systems that place ads on specific Web sites

Unfortunately, I don't see anything about this on Google's press release page yet.

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Conversions of Currency Rates of Exchange

Re:Non-registration links

[tehshen]

(From your first link): In addition to text-based ads, Google's site targeting will include another ad format option, animated image ads. This is an enhancement to the image ads option they launched last year.

I thought people liked Google's ads because they were simple, unobtrusive, and fit in with your website. Now we're getting animated image ads (although I can't imagine "If this is flashing you're a winner!" ads being done by Google, although it could happen now) and by the looks of things (see the main article) the look is chosen for you, even if it doesn't fit in with the rest of the site. I don't know what Google are aiming to do here, but it doesn't look too kind to the end-user.

Re:Non-registration links

[DeadSea]

If you have a site that uses adwords you have the choice of having text ads, image ads, or a mix. I gather that Google is still planning to give sites the choice about what they display.

I just hope they serve the images from a different domain than the javascript used to generate the text ads. Otherwise it won't be easy for most people to block the images without blocking the text.

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Colored syntax highlighting libraries for Java

Re:Non-registration links

[tehshen]

Although many of the people who use AdSense know enough about people to know not to turn the image ads on, there are a few people who will think it is "better", or think they will get more clicks if they use the images, or whatever; I don't want *any* annoying ads there and I am just annoyed that Google is allowing those people to do this.

And the google ads are in an iframe, so if that is blocked the images won't be shown with it, thankfully.

It's okay

[shreevatsa]

Many of you might not like targeted ads ("privacy issues"), but face it --- Google's and Gmail's ads are far less annoying than the random irrelevant banners that, say, Yahoo puts up.

Re:It's okay

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I have no problem with that. They just need to improve a little. A good example would be an e-mail to a friend where for 2-3 e-mails we were talking about a milk allergy we both have. Now to me the most logical advert for that is "Lactose free" things. But instead I got loas of adds going "try our super fantastical milk drink you can't drink yay!".

I don't mind targeted ads because if google really want to read my e-mail I can't stop them.I'd rather a script which doesn't remember them check through them quickly then some guy who was just hired off the street.

Re:It's okay

[nospmiS remoH]

I can see it now:

Me: Hi Mom, its me. I'm calling because I need you to set up your email to allow me to send you encrypted messages.
Mom: Ooookay. Er, what?
Me: Well, GMail snoops on all our messages to put targeted ads next to our email.
Mom: And?
Me: That's bad. All I need is for you to install this Firefox extension that will rot-13s anything we send.
Mom: So GMail is bad? I didn't know. I think I should just go back to my hotmail account.
Me: No, Mom, hotmail is really bad.
Mom: Well, I'll just stop using email then.
Me: No, Mom, wait...It is just a Firefox extension.
Mom: Right, no more email. Goodbye.

Graphics and....ANIMATION?

[Anonymous Coward]

For Internet users, the most visible change will be an expanded use of ads with graphics and animation on many of the Web sites for which Google sells advertising, rather than the short text ads that have been Google's hallmark.

Looks like Adblock's going to be getting a new entry pretty soon.

Re:Evil?

[shreevatsa]

From the summary:
The other thing that other submitters noted was that AdSense would also be accepting graphical advertising as well; but for display on partner sites.
So you can continue using the Google search engine, no unobtrusive ads there. (More pointed text ads, yes, but that's just obtrusive/unobtrusive as before, right?).

Cynically?

[ScentCone]

cynically, it may be about being a public company that needs revenue growth

Everyone raves about, say, Google Maps. I do too. But is it "cynical" for them to move around enough money to actually pay for all that great stuff? Come on, folks, we can't have it both ways. There's nothing "evil" about growing the company. And all of you Google stock holders had better come clean now if your preference is that the stock stays low!

Re:Cynically?

[NDPTAL85]

Google is making so much money because of its keen business sense and superior technology, not their "Do no evil" clause. Brin and Sergey were smart enough to understand the incredible real world immaturity of the geek community and how literally they take almost anything. I mean look at your own post. Referring to "the ends justify the means"? We're talking about an internet search engine company here, not an industrial waste disposal company. No one is going to die if Google does something controversial. The founders knew they could establish instant and long lasting street cred by claiming to aim to "Do no evil". Deep down inside however they know they'll do whatever it takes to grow their business, geek cred be damned.

Graphical Google Ads

[Ford Prefect]

The other thing that other submitters noted was that AdSense would also be accepting graphical advertising as well; but for display on partner sites.

I've seen graphical Google ads for a while - I think they were followed by bits of text saying something like 'What do you think of these? We're testing them' or similar.

Of course, I can't for the life of me remember where I saw them - anyone else seen these adverts, or was I imagining them?

I do remember that they were relatively small and non-Flash - and much smaller than the whopping big Google AdSense advert at the top of Slashdot as I type this... ;-)

Re:Sad

[ScentCone]

I don't know about you, but I've had the option, so far, of accepting graphical AdSense ads or just sticking with text. It's in your account profile.

Re:Sad

[Wieland]

According to TFA, they're allowing graphic ads om their partners sites only, not on google.com. I too will be blocking it, though.

Misleading Summary

[michaelhood]

This is quite possibly the worst summary I've ever seen.
Fallacies:

1. This affects AdWords advertisers whose ads are *published* on the AdSense network. Not AdSense publishers. At all.

2. Image creatives have been an option in our AdWords accounts for at least 6 months. You see them on some AdSense publishers already, you just don't know it.

The real news here is the following:
1. Google is *bringing back* (they had it years ago) cost-per-impression advertising. However, this comes with improvements. I won't spam, see references. (R1)

2. Google is going to finally allow AdWords advertisers to decide what content network sites their ads are published on. (R1) Now we can decide NOT to place our ads on shady sites and fall victim to click fraud.

On the real news item #1, this is of huge interest because Google is allowing some "creepage" back to the CPM (cost-per-mil impressions) model. This seems to indicate that they're finally recognizing that click fraud is a *huge* problem. To the tune of it being estimated 15-20% clicks in competitive CPC (cost-per-click) markets on Google might be fraudulent. (R2)

References: (R1) (R2)

Re:Misleading Summary

[michaelhood]

You obviously didn't read my post sense you used the term "Adwords" three times where "AdSense" was the proper term. These are two totally seperate entities, but since even the submitters and/or editors can't keep them straight, I'll cut you some slack.

It's not been made clear what restrictions there will be on what *AdSense*-publishing sites you can specify your ads to run on. It won't be much different, however. If I decide I want my Airline to show up on a page about hotels serving AdSense, I just review the page and add some detailed hotel keywords to my Airline campaign. It works. This won't be much, if any, different.

As far as your "benefit small, struggling sites", I have no idea what you're talking about. The biggest spenders on AdWords are Fortune 500 companies, by and large.

The comment about graphic and intrusive advertising, these are standard-sized banners, *and they are only served if the site owner specifically says PUT AN IMAGE HERE.*

I avoided quoting your comment because most of it didn't make sense, and as for the rest of your comment, I can't figure out what you mean well enough to respond. Please clarify so I can help you to understand.

how to get rid of ads?

[diegocgteleline.es]

I use /etc/hosts to filter ad sites, but I wonder if it's the "best way" of doing it. I have some docens of lines on that file like this:

0.0.0.1 doubleclick.net ad.doubleclick.net ads.mcafee.com 247.vo.llnw.net
0.0.0.1 doubleclick.com m.doubleclick.net m2.doubleclick.net ad.au.doubleclick.net
0.0.0.1 ads.web.aol.com ads.web.de ads.web21.com adserv.newcentury.net
0.0.0.1 adservant.guj.de adservant.mediapoint.de adserver-espnet.sportszone.com
0.0.0.1 advert.heise.de banners.internetextra.com bannerswap.com customad.cnn.com
0.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com

which will make browsers fail when they try to show you ads. The list is longer (get it if you're curious)

But this seems a bit "hacky". Is there a better way to do this, is there some project which keeps track of such ad sites, or even ip ranges and allows you to block them easily?

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the following script to automatically update my DNS server each night - keeps the ads away for me :-)

#!/bin/bash
cd /etc/blockedHosts

# rotate lists
for (( mm = 2; mm >= 0; mm-- )); do
(( nn = mm + 1 ))
/bin/mv adBlock.txt.$mm adBlock.txt.$nn
done
/bin/mv adBlock.txt adBlock.txt.0

# fetch new bogon list
if /usr/bin/wget "http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?host format=bindconfig&showintro=0&startdate%5Bday%5D=& startdate%5Bmonth%5D=&startdate%5By
ear%5D=&mimet ype=plaintext" -O adBlock.txt ; then
/bin/echo "got it"
rm adBlock.zone
exec 6<adBlock.txt

while read -u 6 x;
do echo " ${x}" >> adBlock.zone;
done;
rndc reload
else
/bin/mv/adBlock.txt.0 adBlock.txt
fi

Re:how to get rid of ads?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Thanks!, so this page is the pointer I needed *duck*. Nice, it has lots of formats, from /etc/hosts to C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts, to BIND and MS XML files....

Offensive Contextual Ads

[bigtallmofo]

What about ads that most will find offensive?

Search for negroes on Google.com and see what ads show up on the right hand side.

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[DoorFrame]

Negroes Sale
New & used Negroes. aff
Check out the deals now!
www.eBay.com

I don't think it's offensive, I think eBay just used a dictionary file to buy up every word it could think of. I admit, however, that could be seen in a bad light. In all fairness though, you don't get any bad ads if you search for slave, slaves, or the n-word, so I'm going to give Google the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Offensive Contextual Ads

[dangitman]

I don't think it's offensive, I think eBay just used a dictionary file to buy up every word it could think of.

Offensive or not, isn't it actually illegal to offer humans for sale? Isn't there this whole prohibition of slavery thing?

Re:Ads? What Ads?

[rathehun]

Do what I often do. Use Adblock, and then just put in *.*.

Firefox becomes Lynx!

R.

AdWords, not AdSense

[freitasm]

The OP is using AdSense when in fact should be AdWords. Advertsisers use AdWords, publishers use AdSense.

Re:Of course I did.

[Saeger]

I expect my children not to use their internet privileges to look at pornography. I think most any parent would agree.

Only hypocritical parents who think of their children as little innocent angels who will somehow be corrupted, would agree. If your kid is "caught" actively (vs accidently) surfing porn sites, then TALK WITH HIM/HER to let 'em know it's perfectly natural to want to look at boobies, but that the younger they are the stupider they are and so they shouldn't consider doing any of it themselves until they're older.

Punishing them only forces them to learn how to go around your back and cover their tracks. And they will.

Re:Of course I did.

[brainburger]

Of course I confronted him. I expect my children not to use their internet privileges to look at pornography.

You are missing the point, just because an ad from a porno site appears on the logs does not mean your progeny has been looking at porno. Given that even very good adblockers don't filter everything (or require lots of knowledge to use), it isn't the average surfer's fault if they get porny ads. Such is the nastiness of unregulated advertising.
Asking him to not use sites that have those ads is pointless as they could pop up on any site which deals in R0mz
(Incidentally, most of the emulator roms out there are for abandonware, so pretty much free of moral quandries about Intellectual Property).

As you run a home network with logging, why not block the domains that are bothering you? (just the ad domains, not the sites your son is learning from).

Re:I'd rather my child be an innocent little angel

[maxpublic]

The point is that pornography is degrading and turns good kids into creeps.

An empirical study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal backing up this claim would be of interest.

Hint: Readers Digest doesn't quite make the grade.

Max

Re:I'd rather my child be an innocent little angel

[shayne321]

will never, ever tell my son that it is okay for him to watch pornography. It promotes a disgusting view of sex and women that I don't want my son to be exposed to. He will grow up with proper guidance where sex is concerned and that is more than enough.

Please, you are sticking your head in the sand.. Your son will be exposed to porno (and cigarettes, and alcohol, and gambling, and probably drugs) whether you want him to be or not. If you have taught your son to think for himself and supported him to the point that he considers himself his own person he will make the right decisions when exposed to these things.. If you shelter him and pretend this stuff doesn't exist you don't know what will happen when he finds all of this cool stuff his family never told him about.

Growing up I was exposed to porn at an early age (10 or 11) through BBSes, however I never turned in to a "sneaky pervert". I had many homosexual friends that I met through BBSes, but never had a homosexual experience or desire to be homosexual. In high school most of my friends were pot heads, but I never smoked pot. I liked hanging around them but I decided for myself I had no desire to smoke a drug to make me lazy, stupid, and hungry.. I can do that on my own.

I'm not telling you or anyone how to raise your kid, just pointing out an alternate viewpoint that you can take or leave. I've had many friends growing up that were sheltered, and watched them all go wild and end up in jail, on drugs, or in rehab when they turned 18.