congrats! thats what i found too!

but then later i found that when i used "closed air" again and my adds started to stand out and look like more obvious adds. even though my ctr went down my earnings went up!

basically i was "smart priced" a little less! basically, my conclusion was make your adds more obvious. Your ctr will go down definitely! But since you are clearly indicating to your visitors that the links are not your website links but "adds" they will not just click on it by mistake and the clickers will really want the product! all this will tell google that your clicks are useful to the advertiser and you will be less "smart priced"! Your earnings per click will go up!

i wonder why Google still recommends "open air" though. It does help increase CTR is of no worth to the advertisers and thus ends up being badd for everyone!

I think that the reason that the "Open Air" (or no border) ads works better is that a border makes a single ad statement - even though individual ads are contained within it, whereas the ads are more distinct from one another when there isn't a border.

Hmm... That's pretty interesting. I found a pretty high rise in earnings when I removed borders - but that was ages ago, and I can't remember statistics. It does make sense though that if the ads are *obviously* ads, the click-throughs are likely to be worth more - I'd never thought of that.

if the ads are *obviously* ads, the click-throughs are likely to be worth more

That was my reasoning for putting a heading marked "Advertisement" over the AS ads:
a) People are less likely to confuse the ads with content making for a better user experience.
b) Maybe the AS alogrithm takes that into consideration when applying Smart Pricing (just my speculation, I have no evidence that it is true).

As a publisher, I wish to ensure that users can easily separate editorial content from advertising. Consequently, I do have a border around all of the Google ads.

I can understand that deleting the borders on ads undoubtedly increases CTR. It would also be logical to believe that some clicks on ads in borderless ad blocks are a result of confusion by users as to whether they are clicking on ads or content. It would also seem likely that too much of that type of activity would possibly leave a site open to a smart pricing penalty.

I know that I may be leaving money on the table by keeping the borders, but I can live with that.

But removing borders does mean more clicks. It also means that initially earnings go up. And then along comes the smartpricing fairy that takes conversions into account. A few weeks / months later the earnings will be the same as it reduces the payout...

been there, got the t shirt, wore it out. Its only beneficial to google.

[edited by: Genuine1 at 12:58 am (utc) on Nov. 7, 2006]

If the ads aren't "obvious" with a white border on a white background, it calls into scrutiny Google's ad designs and the "Ads by Google" notice at the top or to the side of every ad. It's either not big enough or not bold enough.

I think Google's guide to Adsense talks about blending, yes? If the white-white combo is unethical or confusing, Google should tweak their ad color code to stop the blending, similar to how it automatically blocks certain color combos which make text, link, or url too faint or difficult to read.

I find it difficult to believe so many web users have supposedly never encountered GoogleAds before and make the mistake of clicking on a link they didn't realize was an ad. I mean, come on! Where have all these people been since June 2003?

p/g

The last figure I read about the UK, was that 50% of households don't have the internet. So that's at least 50% of 'unsophisticated' web users for that market. No idea what the USA figure is, but you get the picture.

So never mind 2003, there are new web users coming aboard every day. ;-)

> there are new web users coming aboard every day. ;-)

I remember many years ago seeing a show on TV where the narrarator mentioned that only 20% of the US population was on the Internet. Then he said, "That means 80% still aren't!"