Telagon Sichelputzer

Website Owners click on Adsense

As far as I remember, the majority of professional website users apparently hate to see free content being compared with advertisement banners. But in the end, we all have to pay the bills, and a little income from selling ads even on one’s blog can be worth every buck. Sadly, the Telagon Sichelputzer doesn’t produce a profit worth to mention. Hardly noone ever clicks the Google Adsense links which are visible below each entry or on the category and main websites, and on the sidebar. But for testing purposes, I’m on the run with them.

However, Markus Klöschen explained in his recent article why he chooses to click ads. As a website owner, one may not violate against Google’s Policy of Adsense by clicking your own ads, but we can choose to click other people’s ads whenever we like it.

I’m bannerblind. I will in no case click on any colorfull, animated or blinking banner. Since I do visit pages which are using advertisements like that, I pimped my firefox and installed an ad-blocker. This works very good. But I don’t see the ads on my page any more, so I don’t see what some of my visitors see. Therefore I removed the adsense-expression from my adblocker to get the adsense again. From that time on I do see the adsense links and what shall I say, they are relevant.

Relevant… yes, I saw various ads coming from the Google Server and I felt obliged to click and read the advertiser’s website. I found a few things on Business Ethics and some other nice gadgets, added the URLs to the bookmarks and had a good day. One can argument that this does not help the advertiser and is just another cost factor if people click their own Google Ads or are motivated to click ads, but if it’s relevant? I don’t click “Sexy Voice Chat” ads, but rather those that keep my curiousity engaged, those that keep me interested. If ads are being relevant for me, I will click them on other people’s blogs. That’s what I see as some sort of honorable mission in order to say “Thank you for all your free content.”

Update: Edited due to Markus’ comment - that’s one for the morning and the lack of caffine. ;)

[via Light Within]

Kategorien: Blogkultur, Marketing

7 Kommentare

  1. I do not click on any adsense link on my own pages!
    You totaly misunderstood my post. I do click adsense on pages like yours, if they are relevant for me.

    regards,
    Markus

  2. Yeah, I made a mistake. Thanks for letting me know! Had to correct it ;)

  3. thanx for the article…

  4. I sometime click on the site that has an adsense links, but if a site has a lots lots lots adsense i don’t find it neat anymore. (your site only has two, but another sites sometime have two adsense on the sidebar and an adsense on each post which make it load so slow). I do click on adsense sometime if they are relevant to what i am currently looking for, etc.

  5. Actually I offer the allowed maximum of three Adsense areas, but this just happens on the main page and on the large category sites, while the articles itself just have two ads - one within the content above the comments, and the other in the sidebar below the latest comments. More than this except special sponsorship would really kill it off. That’s one reason why I read many blogs and newssites just by aggregating their news feeds and NOT visiting their webspace anymore. Once they plaster the rss feed with advertising, they’re usually deleted unless its a really important feed for me. ;)

  6. Its strange, I tried and tried and tried, but could not find the adsense ads that you have on this site… you must be hiding it well or have I gone blind reading all these blogs?!?

  7. @selfhelpfreak - If you see this page, they are below the “Trackback” links or in the “Sidebar” area with a grey background… ? Or you’ve just used an ad blocker! :P