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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.

19 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Non-registration links by DeadSea · · Score: 4, Informative
    1. Re:Non-registration links by DeadSea · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Colored syntax highlighting libraries for Java

    2. Re:Non-registration links by tehshen · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
  2. It's okay by shreevatsa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:It's okay by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      I like muppets.
    2. Re:It's okay by nospmiS+remoH · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

      --
      !hoD
  3. Graphics and....ANIMATION? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Evil? by shreevatsa · · Score: 4, Informative

    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?).

  5. Cynically? by ScentCone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  6. Graphical Google Ads by Ford+Prefect · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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... ;-)

    --
    Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
  7. Re:Sad by ScentCone · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  8. Misleading Summary by michaelhood · · Score: 5, Informative

    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)

  9. how to get rid of ads? by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:how to get rid of ads? by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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....

  10. Offensive Contextual Ads by bigtallmofo · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
    1. Re:Offensive Contextual Ads by DoorFrame · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

  11. Re:Ads? What Ads? by rathehun · · Score: 4, Funny
    Do what I often do. Use Adblock, and then just put in *.*.


    Firefox becomes Lynx!


    R.

  12. Re:Of course I did. by Saeger · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

    --
    Power to the Peaceful
  13. Re:I'd rather my child be an innocent little angel by shayne321 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube