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Misleading for clicks 101

Sneaky layouts designed to trick

         

Play_Bach

10:00 pm on Oct 23, 2013 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Thanks to a Facebook lead, I just found myself on a 'news' site with a video that looked interesting. When I went to click on the video, curiously I didn't see a play button and clicking on the picture didn't do anything either.

Oddly enough, right below the picture I did see a large rectangle AdSense text ad with the arrow button (you know the one that kind of looks like a big play button) enticing me to click it instead. So what this site has done is use a screenshot of the video, stuck an AdSense ad below it and then way down the page put the actual video. Slick.

ember

10:47 pm on Oct 23, 2013 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Slick and probably against the TOS.

Play_Bach

4:08 am on Oct 24, 2013 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



> probably against the TOS.

I'd say so. On the other hand, it's impressive they found a way - any way - of using the horrid text ads AdSense has been coming up with lately (I certainly didn't make the connection between the arrow and play button similarity until I saw their layout, that's for sure!)