
When will users become Adwords-blind? - master54

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especkman
1\. I think the news.ycombinator.com crowd is a really poor proxy for the 150M
Americans on line.

2\. People's ad blindness depends, at least in part, on the situation. Some
sites hide context sensitive ads for registered/regular users, because they
know that such users aren't likely to click on them. The users who are most
likely to click on them are people who are actively searching for information,
such as people who arrived by clicking on a search result. If they don't find
the information they are looking for, they are going to move on. If the ad
displayed is relevant, it presents an attractive place to move on to.

For my part, I usually completely ignore all the paid placements on the Google
search results, but when I'm shopping for something, I'll click on the ads if
people seem to have what I'm looking for.

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cstejerean
well, although it seems a lot of people here don't like ads the truth is that
they come in handy at times. For example if I'm looking to buy business cards
online I will likely go with one of the advertised choices and rarely bother
to even look through the search results. I might check out several of the
posted options if they look attractive and then decide which one to buy but I
would say that the advertising component works out well. I can say the same
about buying phone cards, searching for web or email hosting or other services
that I don't use often. If I need to buy books I know to go to Amazon, but for
a lot of other things I'll check out Google and click on ads. I have a feeling
a lot of the other people that use the internet for services do the same
thing.

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pootytang
If the adwords are relevant, why would users ignore them? Adwords are
fundamentally different from banners in that they are customized to the query.
If they were so ineffective, where would all of google's money be coming from?

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newbiedude
I probably click on 1 ad a month completely by mistake, and maybe another one
just from curiosity, and then from searching something I have a good idea of
where it is but I'm lazy to look it up, and when I see the link on top
(sponsored) I click it just for kicks...

I'm probably not the average user, but if you multiply that by a few million
people, it can def. add up

When was the last time you bought something after clicking on a google ad? Or
at least, when did you bookmark a website you got to through AdSense? Two
simple metrics that I bet most people have never done through googads

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tx
Aren't they, already? I hear that effectiveness of ads placed outside of
search results context (google themselves) is pretty low.

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aaroneous
I don't believe I have ever clicked on adwords. In fact, I generally have an
aversion to them.

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dummypointer
I personally think AdSense sucks. I was really fed up with those clingy,
annoying ads and started using FireFox extensions. I even personally suggest
my friends to do so. I'd prefer DoubleClik's banners instead. At least they
have some aesthetics and creativity ( very few of them though.)Google has
successfully fooled the advertisers. Don't you think so?

Its not just the stupid-looking ads but my privacy is also in their hands
every time any Google Ad shows up on any website. I am assuming that you guys
know how Google Ads work!

I don't think they will be able to make much money out of it in coming years.
And,users will definitely rise up against Google to regain their privacy.

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newbiedude
google is already trying new things to make sure you just dont click by
accident, such as making you do something to pay you (ie, sign up for a
newsletter, actually BUY a product), but if they were to do that fully, they'd
loose a lot of revenue as I feel that most people that click on ads do so by
accident or out of curiosity, not necessarily with the intent of actually
purchasing a product or a service

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cmars232
After they discover Firefox extensions?

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master54
Given how users got banners-blind after some years of conditioning, how long
would it take for them to become Adwords-blind, especially with
99.999999999999999999999% of websites forcing these ads on them via Adsense?

