Discrimination? Large Sites Have Bigger Clickable Zones
I recently blogged about Adsense reducing clickable zones to protect the interests of their advertisers. In turn, I and 99% of other publishers, experienced a decrease in click-through rates by the beginning of November. Google is hoping that with the decrease in click-through rates and increase in conversion, advertisers would put out bigger bids so in time, the earnings would be the same. Recently, however, Problogger reported that some web sites still have the old size of clickable zones in place. The article contained a list of sites which didn’t have their clickable zones reduced. Let’s examine them all one by one a week later.
Gmail
The whole thing was discovered by Problogger because of Gmail. Someone emailed Problogger’s owner, Darren Rowse, about the discrepancy. According to them, the ads in their Gmail account retained the old clickable zones. I wasn’t surprised when I read this. After all, Gmail belongs to Google. While it may be true last week, it isn’t anymore — at least not for me. I checked my Gmail account and noticed it implemented the new clickable zones.
Engadget
For some reason, I’m having difficulties getting the Google ads in Engadget to show, so there won’t be a screen cap. But yes, Engadget retains the old clickable zone.
About.com
As demonstrated by the screen capture, About.com’s Google ads retain the wider clickable zones.
MySpace
Same as with About.com, MySpace still has the old clickable zones.
CNN
Yep, the old clickable zones.
Darren Rowse conjectured that these big sites retaining bigger clickable zones might be due to the fact that Google considers them premium sites. He also raises a valid point by saying that big sites such as these could generate more random accidental clicks than many, many smalls sites put together. If their reasoning should be believed, retaining the old clickable zones for premium publishers defeats their purpose. How about you, what do you think Google’s up to? And about Gmail suddenly reducing the size of clickable ads — Darren Rowse must have done great to pique publishers’ curiosity.
Filed under: AdSense News
