<< Google are about to implement a new change to the way clicks are counted. The background of a text ad will no longer take users to the advertiser's site. Only clicking on the Link or Title in an ad will take a user through.

I expect that this will reduce income for some publishers as accidential clicks will be far less likely.

Apparently it has been running on Google's search sites for a while. I understand that publishers are being warned that income may change as a result. >>

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/3503359.htm

Also see:
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015315.html

Nobody warned me yet...
The change is fair enough. I'm curious to see how much my income drops.

From what I can see, the change is live for some of the ads.

when you say "is live", you mean if you click on the background, nothing happens?

I just contacted Google France to know if this change is effective outside US too.

Can't see the change live here yet, the white area in-between text of two ads is still clickable for me...

I think this is a fair move .. there have been complains from advertisers that Google AdSense for Content is just scam .. and for me, I do sometimes click into ads I didn't intended to because I tend to highlight such when I read ...

I would think it would increase the value of the ads of long term. And thus increase the payout per click eventually.

i had no idea the click area was so large... but I have been tending to my web sites and have clicked on my own ads mistakenly. Now i just use IE7pro adblocker..

I was wondering, if someone uses an adblocker does google still register as an impression?

Why now? Why not long before this? This is a no-brainer that should have happened long ago. How much you wanna bet they were about to get into some hot water over this? Someone, somewhere, finally hit a nerve, and they had no other choice. Sounds tin-foil'ish I know, but seriously, it's taken them THIS LONG to get around to doing this? There has to be a reason why they are doing it "now" is all I'm saying.

For what it's worth, it's certainly possible to have restricted interactivity area within a SWF file, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to mandate this style of construction. With HTML ads Google can construct the string of text itself, adding the ANCHOR to specific fields in their database. But most people want to design their images and richer-media elements themselves, and this is handled as a blob in their database.

But it's in the advertisers' own interest to reduce accidental clicks, so they'd probably use a variety of methods themselves to prequalify the click before they pay for it. Seem right to you...?

jd/adobe

I think this change will benefit most users. I agree the value of the service will go up for advertisers if Google can reduce erroneous clicks. Given the holiday shopping season is approaching I would think Google may have a tight window by which to implement the change.

Ironically, there are Google ads just below your post and the broad area is still clickable (and not just the title or the hyperlink). Obviously, this hasn't come into effect yet. ;-))

In the beginning Google used small clickable areas, and after while they increase to cover the Ad cell area. Recently, they went back to the very old way, because when the Advertisers complain then Google MUST LISTEN to them because their the one who feed Google Ad Machine with cash. Also if you notice in the AdSense Guidelines page you will notice one of the guidelines is to place AdSense Ad Unit away from the navigation links or other banners in order to avoid accidental clicks.

> Obviously, this hasn't come into effect yet. ;-))

I suppose it's still being rolled out, I was already seeing it live yesterday...

[Edit: I linked the word "AdSense" in the post.]

I'm impressed – this is one of the most major changes rolled out by google for it's prodcts in the past years. IMHO.. Apparently this will corrupt a lot of adsense scraper spam business models

"accident clicks" vs "automated links" perhaps by a well programmed robot is my first idea to come. Well, hacking it's a not-so-easy task to do. This will be a new challengue for them. At end, Google ads will have only one hot pixel to accept clicks... XD

Sorry, I'm in the middle of a hard programming day!

Decreases in my income would be unnoticeable – I don't have any income anyway.

As Qais pointed out above, this is just going back to how it was when AdSense was first introduced.

It strikes me that ads with longer headlines will be easier to click.

I don't expect my income to be much affected, but I think the change will reduce the profitability of made-for-adsense sites that do things like putting a skyscraper ad beside the scroll bar in the hope of collecting accidental clicks.

Having fewer of that kind of made-for-adsense site should increase how much the rest of us will get from the advertisers' budgets.

The text in the middle should be clickable please.

The problem is that the Area is STILL clickable, and STILL goes to the Ad, but the publisher doesn't get paid for it!

Yesterday alone, I lost 380 clicks.
my 3rd party tracker which was usually +/- 5% acurate to my adsense results counted ~400 clicks.
Adsense credited me for 17.

I lost 380 clicks yesterday ALONE.

If they don't fix this soon, and i mean like TOMORROW soon, I'm going to stop serving adsense, and I suggest ALL publishers do the same. REvolt.

No, the area is no longer clickable.

It's a better ad now = better user experience = better advertiser results = eventual higher price for ads = more money for me :-)

The square ads have updated but the towers are still clickable all over the whole area (at least on my sites at this moment)

Its already activated for me. Only links are clickable. I could see drop in clicks. worrying..

I've lost 50% of clicks. Now It only enough to pay for server, no income. I'll think about other PPC systems now.

Interestingly, this update doesn't apply for Gmail, Google Groups and other Google hosted services ...

At Google Groups only the blue link is clickable.

Oops .. thanks for the correction!

CTR drop : -60%... at least now we know the reason... lol

Interestingly enough since around that time I have higher AdSense earnings than before. I'm still waiting to see if this was coincidental, ups and downs are quite normal in AdSense but then often flatten again after a while...