Web advertisers have more sense now than they did ten years ago, and they’re not just looking for traffic. They’re looking for traffic that’s of some pre-determined value for them. Traffic that clicks through *and* makes a purchase. Or traffic that clicks through *and* signs up for more information. In other words, they’re looking for high quality traffic.

If a keyword or advertising campaign gets them a lot of bounces — one-click hits, no conversions — they’ll determine those keywords or that market is a poor performer and drop that campaign for something with more favorable numbers.

I think this is why Google prohibits encouraging clicks. Charity clicks drive down value.

As far as my behavior with ads are concerned: I click them if they interest me. I frequently have my ad-blocker turned on, though, since many mainstream sites have taken to loud ads, very animated ads, or takeovers. The publisher needs to respect the primary reason a visitor is on the site instead of trying to Clockwork Orange their market.

@app: fortunately, most of the readers of my blogs (as far as I can tell) are not bloggers themselves, or even if they are, they’re not really into ads, etc. I can see it being a potential problem on blogs about blogging, but not really on other niche topics.

It’s true that there are millions of blogs out there, but actually there are many more everyday Net users who simply surf for information, entertainment, etc., who don’t know about or use ad blockers, and who do still engage with ads, so long as they’re not overly intrusive.

I read a post by Seth Godin a couple of weeks back where he was talking about tipping people by clicking their ads and it was a different perspective on clicking then I had had before.

I have never been much of a clicker unless something came personally recommended by someone I am familiar with. Meaning I would probably click on something you reviewed in your blog while I would never click on an adsense ad. Like you, I would type the addy in if I needed to follow the ad that badly.

Thanks to your post, I now get why: I was afraid of getting viruses. Now just to be clear here, I used netscape for the first 5 years on the net and firefox for the last 2. My fear, as it turns out, was something I ‘caught’ in my early days on the internet before I even knew the difference between browers and other matters of virus.

It’s interesting how something can stay with me even after years; like an obsolete or junk program just running in the back ground where I couldn’t see it all the while influencing the operating system. ;)

In Gratitude
Kat

No, it makes you a paranoid Windows user that has to worry about malware, viruses, etc. every second you use your crappy OS.

But I’m a Mac / Windows / Linux user. Often at the same time, with at least three computers running on my desk. Why does it always have to be a platform battle?

“There are better ways to make money?” I don’t even know what that means. Are you suggesting that professional writers should find other ways to make money? The word professional means they do what they do to make money and it’s not just a hobby.

a better way to send your regards to a blogger would be to leave a comment

Here goes my comment. :D

Bloggers themselves don’t usually click on ads. It’s usually the visitors from search engines that find another link (i.e., the ad) interesting….

The more bloggers that use Adsense, the less we all will make from it, because it translates into more bloggers never clicking ads.

This is why on most of my sites I am moving away from Adsense and going with pay-per-day ads from Project Wonderful that everyone is allowed to click without any fear of click fraud. And what is really interesting about these ads is that many are for other blogs and web comics…interesting stuff! I have met some great people and found some interesting blogs through those ads.

I still keep a few adsense ads, though, since visitors from search engines seem to respond best to those, but I only use them on sites that have a good percentage of the traffic coming from search engines.