Footnote: the info above is from a URL when I was logged into Google... Not a public URL.... so I googled site:webmasterworld.com "Rewarded Ad Gate" to see if anyone here was talking about it. I also just googled the term "Rewarded Ad Gate" (with the quote marks) today 11/22/22 and even Google has nothing public about it.

11/23/2022 -- decided to see if this post was found by Google yet, so I googled "Rewarded Ad Gate" again and it spit back "About 1,630 results". Top ones were for articles by Nicole Farley on SeachEngineLand [searchengineland.com ] citing this post and another by Barry Schwartz on SeoRoundTable [seroundtable.com ].

Both articles referenced this post and linked back to it... this post was #3 in Google's 1,630 results, (which was "No Results found" 48 hours ago).

Most of the other results were publishers syndicating feeds, aggregators and outright bot-scraped junk or social media cross-posting links on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, Reddit etc..

The only new info I found related to (Google/Adsense) "Rewarded Ad Gate" was that Google's Admob offer something they call Rewarded ads to monetize (mobile) apps.

According to Google's page about AdMob / Rewarded Ads --

What is a rewarded ad?
Rewarded ads provide an opportunity for users to watch a video or engage with a playable ad in exchange for a reward within the app.

[admob.google.com ]

The page goes on to describe how "rewards" might be used in game apps.

It seems the Google / Adsense Rewarded Ad Gate is more specifically a paywall for Adsense publishers, (e.g. "web pages" versus "apps").

How forcing users to click on ads to view online content is a good thing for anything or anyone but G’s bank balance is beyond me.

A new low, even for them. They are obviously desperate to increase revenue by any means.

It's just a paywall. The twist is it encourages users to give up a little time instead of "paying" or signing up... Not terrible.


Footnote: the term "Rewarded Ad Gate" had "No results Found" on Google on 11/21/22 -- Today 11/25/22 shows: About 5,690 results (0.36 seconds).
.

How forcing users to click on ads to view online content is a good thing for anything or anyone but G’s bank balance is beyond me.

It's beyond me, too. As an advertiser I want users who click my ads because they're interested in what I'm promoting, not because they've been maneuvered or forced into clicking.

i probably won't use it but think if g shares the revenue with publishers, it's a good alternative to actual paywalls asking for paid subscriptions. what really annoys me is clicking links on google news and getting slapped with paywalls. to me it's a form of bait and switch. i immediately back out and use alternative sources. if the paywall asked me to watch an ad for 30 sec, i may tolerate it.

As an advertiser I want users who click my ads because they're interested in what I'm promoting, not because they've been maneuvered or forced into clicking.

Are you not advertising in mobile apps then? After all, that's how most ad-supported apps work: play a level of a game, be forced to watch an ad for X seconds, play another level, etc. I don't like it either, but it's nothing new or unusual in my opinion.

not advertising in mobile apps then

I try hard to avoid mobile when I'm paying for ads. For the products I'm usually promoting, mobile traffic converts too poorly. YMMV.

I don't recommend adsense for mobile, and won't until they make the ad code faster for phones.

If you use wordpress, it's now a core detection feature to serve content sections only to mobile OR desktop. I'm surprised more people don't wrap their ad code with the feature to keep slow ads off mobile.

Fast ads on mobile = a better user experience. Without a good user experience you won't get the repeat traffic. Round and round we go.

Use amp ads (possible on non amp websites!) or just optimize your loading flow on website. As I was optimizing my website i realised that 99% of webmasters dont know how resource loading works on web.

simple example
- putting google analytics js to on load event makes my ads 0,5 seconds faster
- using anchor ads loading with ad exchange onload event also 0,5 sec faster
- the same onload event for intestitial, another savings
- using gpt tag instead of adsense tag + 300ms faster

- so only display ads are loaded before onload event on my sites (important for display ads regarding rpm, but not important for anchor and interstitial - it is secret sauce)
- and if this is not enough you can use AMP ads

most people dont know how to do it and complain instead, you need years to learn it or just pay to do it, but do not complain, it is stupid

didnt get this yet. maybe targeted