5 ms·

Google adsense has a bigger problem, adblocking It has gone from hardcore nerds (about 10%) blocking ads which was fine to everyone and their mother blocking a

by yc1010 11y ago

Google adsense has a bigger problem, adblocking It has gone from hardcore nerds (about 10%) blocking ads which was fine to everyone and their mother blocking ads on desktops/laptops, and I do not blame them. According to my measurements of adblocking (surprisingly easy to detect if ads are being blocked) I have used adsense since it started in 2003 making close to million euro in that time, but the last few months have been absolutely disastrous (tho my traffic has also fallen in last couple of years unfortunately) Basically the writing is on the wall and I have concentrated on other projects in last while There must be alot of worried people now at google wondering if they will still have a job in a few years, yes mobile is helping but for how long?

Udo 11y ago
I think it became disastrous for Google when they made the decision to serve image ads, and even worse: animated ads. This means as a user you can no longer whitelist Google ads with the expectation they'll stick to unobtrusive text-only ads. But there's also a deeper problem. In my opinion, when you install an ad blocker, you're already exceptionally unlikely to click an ad on purpose.
- corin_ 11y ago
  > In my opinion, when you install an ad blocker, you're already exceptionally unlikely to click an ad on purpose. I don't think that's the case, I think it's just a lie told by people working in ad sales Nobody installs ad block because they realised they weren't interested in any of the adverts. They're doing it because some adverts are annoying or distracting or browser intensive or privacy violating or... None of those things make a person less likely to click on an advert if they see one that is both reasonably presented and relevant to their interests. Of course there are people who detest adverts, and in those people there's obviously a (close to 100% I presume) crossover between "has adblock" and "wouldn't click anyway", but I think those people are a small minority of people blocking ads.
  - Udo 11y ago
    > I don't think that's the case, I think it's just a lie told by people working in ad sales I don't work in ad sales, and I'm not lying. Yes, ads are beyond annoying and they're making some websites borderline unusable - but the reason why ads don't work lies in the fact that the number of ads I ever clicked on purpose could probably be counted on one hand, over my entire lifetime. It may well be the case that I'm exceptional, but on the off chance I'm not: advertisers were wasting their dollars on showing me stuff since way before I even knew what an ad blocker was.
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      I'm close to your one-handed-click-count 'niche'. I'm really not a commercial target. I kinda despise the actual idea of advertising. It's in your face, takes a lot of resources, distract and also rarely on point. I don't think I would ever install an adblocker if it was 80% small text ads (like Google off side ads), or a non invasive static image (granted it's not taking more space than the content I was about to read). Could website function with this kind only ? Also, I really wonder what it looks like for a user to click on an ad... ps: I didn't count the few times I did click on them voluntarily just to give some prints to a website in need.
    - teddyuk 11y ago
      i'm like you, the only time I had clicked an ad has been by accident and I have hit back straight away.
      - geomark 11y ago
        Same here. Never clicked an ad intentionally. Not on a website or on Google's search results pages. I guess that's why it seems to me that all the huffing and puffing about the evils of ad blockers is nonsense, because ad blocker or not I'm not going to click an ad. I'm also going to avert my eyes if I see a display ad, so brand building with display ads is also lost on me. And I have never purchased music that includes DRM, except a DVD by accident one time and I returned it for a refund when I discovered it was infected with DRM. I guess I'm just a really terrible consumer and not part of anybody's target market.
- cronjobber 11y ago
  > you're already exceptionally unlikely to click an ad on purpose. I hate distracting blinkety-blink and I hate the tracking and spying aspect of the whole sordid business model, so I adblock. But I can't say I'm immune to the ads I do see.
HappyTypist 11y ago
Google is reportedly paying 30% of ad revenue to the company behind Adblock Plus to get on the "acceptable ads" whitelist for Google search. I find this a despicable pracrice and encourage my friends to use another ad blocker. If you use ABP, you are funding Eyeo.
- golergka 11y ago
  > reportedly Can you please provide a source?
  - jmngomes 11y ago
    Also curious...I'd be surprised if they are still paying 30% to the publishers.
- philjohn 11y ago
  Like it or not, ads pay for much of the content you consume online. I don't mind unobtrusive ads, and the google adsense ads tend to fall into that camp.
- blfr 11y ago
  You only need to untick one box in ABP and it stops letting through the whitelisted ads.
- fridek 11y ago
  That would be $20 billion, making it one of the top 1000 companies by revenue globally. I'll leave it to you to decide if it looks like a true information.
- cbr 11y ago
  https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads No applicant will be favored or treated differently, and no one can buy their way onto the whitelist. Everyone has tocomply with the criteria and everyone has to go through the same process before the ads qualify as "acceptable." https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads-agreements https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads-agreements Do companies pay you for being added to the list? Whitelisting is free for all small- and medium websites and blogs. However, managing this list requires significant effort on our side and this task cannot be completely taken over by volunteers as it happens with common filter lists. That's why we are being paid by some larger properties that serve non-intrusive advertisements that want to participate in the Acceptable Ads initiative.
pjc50 11y ago
I'm considering rooting my Android phone and tablet simply so I can install effective adblockers against three things: - in-app ads which, without clicking on the ad, bounce me out of the app and into a browser - browser ads which bounce to the good old "your computer has a virus!" exploitware - animated web background ads which slow the browser to a crawl
- blfr 11y ago
  You can have a regular in-browser AdBlock in mobile Firefox without rooting the phone. It doesn't stop the in-apps ads of course.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  Really, displaying exploitware should be reason to ban completely those who use it (from the app stores)
- DanBC 11y ago
  > - in-app ads which, without clicking on the ad, bounce me out of the app and into a browser On iOS there are ads that bounce you out of the browser and into the app store. I cannot understand how anyone thinks this is a good idea. I am ad tolerant but those ads make me want to use ad block technology.
  - falcolas 11y ago
    Yeah, Imgur would run some of these ads, and I wanted to scream every time I would be browsing reddit and get bounced to the app store with every third click.
  - jmngomes 11y ago
    Deep linking was being touted as the next big thing in mobile advertising, namely by some well known VCs (1) that love to play the predict-the-next-breakthrough lottery, yet it has proven to be more of a nuisance than anything else... (1) https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/608713213702713344 https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/608713213702713344
  - 11y ago
honest_joe 11y ago
Can that be "fixed" by dynamically CSS generated ads ?
ExpiredLink 11y ago
Google could easily circumvent ad-blocking by making ads indistinguishable from content. I hope they will not do it, the internet would become a bustling nightmare.
- thescrewdriver 11y ago
  The background color of ads section in search results seems to get closer and closer to the regular page background each year, or maybe it's just my eyes.
  - cbr 11y ago
    They've switched from coloring the background to adding a yellow "Ad" marker on each ad: https://www.google.com/search?q=credit+cards https://www.google.com/search?q=credit+cards
amelius 11y ago
> Google adsense has a bigger problem, adblocking Also, one day Congress will figure out that it could be a good idea to introduce a tax on ads.
tobico 11y ago
I use ad blockers for distracting image and popup ads, but I fairly frequently click on Google text ads in search results. When there's a product category that's very crowded, if a company is willing to pony up some money to get my attention, that's often one indicator that a particular product might be worth my time to investigate.
- kps 11y ago
  These are about the only ads I deliberately use, and yet, it happens again and again that I am interested in buying XYZ, search for XYZ, click an ad that explicitly mentions XYZ — and find that the advertiser doesn't offer XYZ. What is it about marketeers that has them ceaselessly shitting upstream from where people drink?

by yc1010 11y ago

Udo 11y ago

I think it became disastrous for Google when they made the decision to serve image ads, and even worse: animated ads. This means as a user you can no longer whitelist Google ads with the expectation they'll stick to unobtrusive text-only ads. But there's also a deeper problem. In my opinion, when you install an ad blocker, you're already exceptionally unlikely to click an ad on purpose.

corin_ 11y ago
> In my opinion, when you install an ad blocker, you're already exceptionally unlikely to click an ad on purpose. I don't think that's the case, I think it's just a lie told by people working in ad sales Nobody installs ad block because they realised they weren't interested in any of the adverts. They're doing it because some adverts are annoying or distracting or browser intensive or privacy violating or... None of those things make a person less likely to click on an advert if they see one that is both reasonably presented and relevant to their interests. Of course there are people who detest adverts, and in those people there's obviously a (close to 100% I presume) crossover between "has adblock" and "wouldn't click anyway", but I think those people are a small minority of people blocking ads.
- Udo 11y ago
  > I don't think that's the case, I think it's just a lie told by people working in ad sales I don't work in ad sales, and I'm not lying. Yes, ads are beyond annoying and they're making some websites borderline unusable - but the reason why ads don't work lies in the fact that the number of ads I ever clicked on purpose could probably be counted on one hand, over my entire lifetime. It may well be the case that I'm exceptional, but on the off chance I'm not: advertisers were wasting their dollars on showing me stuff since way before I even knew what an ad blocker was.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    I'm close to your one-handed-click-count 'niche'. I'm really not a commercial target. I kinda despise the actual idea of advertising. It's in your face, takes a lot of resources, distract and also rarely on point. I don't think I would ever install an adblocker if it was 80% small text ads (like Google off side ads), or a non invasive static image (granted it's not taking more space than the content I was about to read). Could website function with this kind only ? Also, I really wonder what it looks like for a user to click on an ad... ps: I didn't count the few times I did click on them voluntarily just to give some prints to a website in need.
  - teddyuk 11y ago
    i'm like you, the only time I had clicked an ad has been by accident and I have hit back straight away.
    - geomark 11y ago
      Same here. Never clicked an ad intentionally. Not on a website or on Google's search results pages. I guess that's why it seems to me that all the huffing and puffing about the evils of ad blockers is nonsense, because ad blocker or not I'm not going to click an ad. I'm also going to avert my eyes if I see a display ad, so brand building with display ads is also lost on me. And I have never purchased music that includes DRM, except a DVD by accident one time and I returned it for a refund when I discovered it was infected with DRM. I guess I'm just a really terrible consumer and not part of anybody's target market.
cronjobber 11y ago
> you're already exceptionally unlikely to click an ad on purpose. I hate distracting blinkety-blink and I hate the tracking and spying aspect of the whole sordid business model, so I adblock. But I can't say I'm immune to the ads I do see.

HappyTypist 11y ago

Google is reportedly paying 30% of ad revenue to the company behind Adblock Plus to get on the "acceptable ads" whitelist for Google search. I find this a despicable pracrice and encourage my friends to use another ad blocker. If you use ABP, you are funding Eyeo.

golergka 11y ago
> reportedly Can you please provide a source?
- jmngomes 11y ago
  Also curious...I'd be surprised if they are still paying 30% to the publishers.
philjohn 11y ago
Like it or not, ads pay for much of the content you consume online. I don't mind unobtrusive ads, and the google adsense ads tend to fall into that camp.
blfr 11y ago
You only need to untick one box in ABP and it stops letting through the whitelisted ads.
fridek 11y ago
That would be $20 billion, making it one of the top 1000 companies by revenue globally. I'll leave it to you to decide if it looks like a true information.
cbr 11y ago
https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads https://adblockplus.org/acceptable-ads No applicant will be favored or treated differently, and no one can buy their way onto the whitelist. Everyone has tocomply with the criteria and everyone has to go through the same process before the ads qualify as "acceptable." https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads-agreements https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads-agreements Do companies pay you for being added to the list? Whitelisting is free for all small- and medium websites and blogs. However, managing this list requires significant effort on our side and this task cannot be completely taken over by volunteers as it happens with common filter lists. That's why we are being paid by some larger properties that serve non-intrusive advertisements that want to participate in the Acceptable Ads initiative.

pjc50 11y ago

I'm considering rooting my Android phone and tablet simply so I can install effective adblockers against three things: - in-app ads which, without clicking on the ad, bounce me out of the app and into a browser - browser ads which bounce to the good old "your computer has a virus!" exploitware - animated web background ads which slow the browser to a crawl

blfr 11y ago
You can have a regular in-browser AdBlock in mobile Firefox without rooting the phone. It doesn't stop the in-apps ads of course.
raverbashing 11y ago
Really, displaying exploitware should be reason to ban completely those who use it (from the app stores)
DanBC 11y ago
> - in-app ads which, without clicking on the ad, bounce me out of the app and into a browser On iOS there are ads that bounce you out of the browser and into the app store. I cannot understand how anyone thinks this is a good idea. I am ad tolerant but those ads make me want to use ad block technology.
- falcolas 11y ago
  Yeah, Imgur would run some of these ads, and I wanted to scream every time I would be browsing reddit and get bounced to the app store with every third click.
- jmngomes 11y ago
  Deep linking was being touted as the next big thing in mobile advertising, namely by some well known VCs (1) that love to play the predict-the-next-breakthrough lottery, yet it has proven to be more of a nuisance than anything else... (1) https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/608713213702713344 https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/608713213702713344
- 11y ago

honest_joe 11y ago

Can that be "fixed" by dynamically CSS generated ads ?

ExpiredLink 11y ago

Google could easily circumvent ad-blocking by making ads indistinguishable from content. I hope they will not do it, the internet would become a bustling nightmare.

thescrewdriver 11y ago
The background color of ads section in search results seems to get closer and closer to the regular page background each year, or maybe it's just my eyes.
- cbr 11y ago
  They've switched from coloring the background to adding a yellow "Ad" marker on each ad: https://www.google.com/search?q=credit+cards https://www.google.com/search?q=credit+cards

amelius 11y ago

> Google adsense has a bigger problem, adblocking Also, one day Congress will figure out that it could be a good idea to introduce a tax on ads.

tobico 11y ago

I use ad blockers for distracting image and popup ads, but I fairly frequently click on Google text ads in search results. When there's a product category that's very crowded, if a company is willing to pony up some money to get my attention, that's often one indicator that a particular product might be worth my time to investigate.

kps 11y ago
These are about the only ads I deliberately use, and yet, it happens again and again that I am interested in buying XYZ, search for XYZ, click an ad that explicitly mentions XYZ — and find that the advertiser doesn't offer XYZ. What is it about marketeers that has them ceaselessly shitting upstream from where people drink?