What is Google thinking? When the company announced its new AdSense features, it also promised (warned?) that it would experiment with a new AdSense branding tag, referring to "Ads by Goooooooooooogle." Don't count: that's 12 o's. For no reason. Whatever.
2. Ads by Gooooooooogle: Adsense = Nonsense
You may have noticed that Google AdSense ads now say "Ads by Gooooooooooooogle". 12 o's what the heck is going on? When I saw this I thought, this is nuts. Why would google do something so stupid and potentially dilute the value of their brand.
This is nonsense and everyAdsense participant & adwords advertiser should tell them so! If you are advertising with adwords and are using contextual advertising you should not be happy with this change either.
I received an email from Google asking what I thought about this. So I told them this is lunacy, people will not trust the ads, it dilutes the power of the google brand, it is eye-catching but confusing to web users. It could adversely effect click thru rates and as an adsense publisher & adwords advertiser, I don't want to be their guinea pig.
It is just that little nuances like this can negatively impact click thru rates. I test and measure everything and since the started this nonsense I have seen the click thru rate decrease by 18% .
If you are obsessive about these things,(and I am) you will also notice that they are not doing this to ALL adsense participants. You can still see some ads that have the old reliable "ads by Google" ad header. I guess google is doing some split testing like I do with all my ads. I can't fault them for that, but I sure hate being part of their experiment unwillingly. It is not what I signed up for when I agreed to run their ads. I have many options for ways to monetize site visitors with different forms of advertising and when they change the rules and it negatively impacts my business I am not happy.
Additionally, since myself and many of my clients use contextual (content) advertising as an advertiser with google adwords; this effects that side of the business as well. Adwords Contextual advertising has almost always been a low value ROI proposition. Now they are making it even worse.
As a paying advertiser on Adwords I agreed to have my ads shown by Google, not Gooooooooooooogle. ! Read more on this at my Adwords, Overture, Sem, RSS Marketing Blog http://adwordprofitsoft.blogspot.com
Rodney Rumford
http://semmarketing.com
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Rodney Rumford
4. Since Google AdSense started becoming popular, a lot of imitators started emerging. I think this might be a way for them to reclaim their product by making their name more eye-catching.
But I agree, this is very unattractive, and although it might be better for Google in some aspects, it's going to be worse for the site owners, which will just end up hurting Google in the long run.
I wouldn't be too worried, though. Google has done lots of strange things like this in the past, and they always get fixed after a while.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by David Hammond
5. While this site may not need it, some sites use the Google ads in a slim box on the right side of the page. Google was, apparently, having problems with the box being too small when some of the ads displayed weren't a decent length. Adding the Goooooooooooogle allowed them to set a minimum size for the box. It's not completely random, at least.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Max Ruderburg
6. I think it takes away from the credibility of the ads and just cheapens the whole thing. I hope they find another alternative.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Viagra Man
7. It has to do with the amount of ads that are geared towards the content of your website. Like in the Google search, at the bottom of the page, displays a "Gooooooooogle" if you have 10 or more pages of results for your inquiry. It'll display a "Gooogle" if you only have three pages of results.
Whatever the reason- I like it. It's so Google.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by King Arthur
8. I see at least 3 different types of signatures:
1) "Ads by Google" are still there when you see a large horisontal banner. In fact, one banner displays this text:
2) "Nekomerčn?eklamy Google" - which means "Non-profit ads by Google" in some slavic language, Polish or Czech.
3) "Ads by Gooo....ogle" (I mostly see 6 "o"s). Idea that this is here to increase box size is funny, but wrong.
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Guide to Russia
9. The AdSense brand image can work to protect the size of the box and also help deliver the advertising messages in full. Google Branding always sets trends!
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Jack Roberts
Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:
1. Considering that Google has done an amazing job branding their main product (search) I don't see how Goooooooooooooogle could possibly be an improvement. By the way, I think the number of 0's varies at least according to this entry from the buy links blog: http://www.buy-links.com/archives/000471.html
I mean the brand is so strong its almost too strong. Google is becoming a verb - remember when xerox was fighting to keep its name out of the lexicon?
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by SEO student