Ads will be disabled on this page. Anything that looks like an ad on this page is purely for demonstration purposes.
I hope people appreciate the effort I put into the featured image for this post. These were from all the ads I banned on Adsense in a day. Not for this site, as I am awaiting approval, but from sites that pay the bills. I own a small network of content sites. My relationship with Adsense is the publisher. I also seem responsible for screening the advertisements that violate Google’s ad terms of service.
I would love to say I am a content creator but more of an over-glorified administrator.
Back in September, I had a painful lesson in screening the ads Google serves on my sites. I became aware of the problem when I was losing traffic, and Pinterest shut down traffic campaigns because they claimed I had violated their policy. Unfortunately, Pinterest gives a menu of possible violations, and my ad rep seemed to think it had to deal with my pins. Which was not helpful,
It was Google.
Honestly, I thought it was an error, as past claims ended up being wrong. But for the first time ever, Pinterest was right. At least by the menu of possibilities, the rep was wrong. I had unknowingly violated ad policy, forcing people to visit another page. One stat stuck out during this crisis: watching traffic on both Facebook and Pinterest take a dive. It had a 17% click-through rate (CTR) on Adsense. That is bad. I had no idea because I had been excluded from the test when browsing.
Google decided to test Vignette ads on 50% of my audience without my permission, nor did they notify me that the main income source for my employees was going to be part of an experiment. Despite the loss of traffic, it was going to make all of my traffic face this absurdity.
The test only focused on income. I can see how they were paying more to take up my entire screen than they would with regular ads. The test did not factor in lose of return visitors. I stopped the test on all sites and turned off the ad unit. One quote came to mind when I found out what Google had done:
We estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual’s visual field before inducing seizures. – Nolan Sorrento – “Ready Player One” (2018).
That was not the only problem Google gave me.
You would think all was clear, but traffic was not going back up, and one site was still spiraling. Click-through was 12%. Now, I was seeing many questionable ads. In the past, I had knocked them out as I saw them on my sites. But now, another took its place for every ad account I blocked. It took months to block all these bad actors.
One of the most prolific offenders is ads that look like a clickable button that use one or two words, like:
- Click Here
- Start
- Download
- Watch Now
- Register Now
In most ads, you know what they offer. You have to click on these to see what they are about, or in my case, look at them through Adsense’s portal. Some might seem to hint at what they represent or just offer some vague wording. I feel they are made purely to disrupt the experience of our content. It’s not like an ad from eBay that shows me a comic I might want. This confusing type of ad clearly wants the visitor to click. I would advise not clicking on any ads like these.
What happens when you click the ad?
One of these green buttons I clicked on said ‘Click Here’ and had the text in mostly Spanish “música, ebooks, juegos, and película”. This is what I saw.
I see no music, ebooks, games, or movies. Just this registration screen, which is clearly going to ask for my credit card details. I am not willing to go through the effort to find out. But any credit card theft through this link, if clicked through my site, reflects on me. Visitors may think that they have to click on some random green button to see the rest of our content.
I would catalog all the common themes I see with these sites, but that is a Herculean task, even for my weapons-grade ADHD.
But that is not the only thing that happens when I click on these links. With some ads, you know what their intention is once you click. like this ad
The print is really hard to read on a phone. But it says.
- Click Continue
- Play Now
- Solitaire
The steps are nonsensical. Which is a common thing in ads like this. Like the one above that was not entirely in Spanish.
However, after I 1. Click Continue. I don’t get 2. Play Now. Nor 3. Solitaire. Instead, Avast aborts the connection.
This is why you need antivirus.
The Avast alert means the website I tried to visit was trying to run a suspicious script. This script could potentially do things like collect my personal info or harm my computer without me knowing. This is behavior that reflects badly on my site, not Google if someone sees the alert. If they don’t, they are likely infected, and I would rather avoid playing any part of that. Despite the moral reasons for caring about what happens to visitors, this will also reduce the chances they see more of my content.
Then we get to ads like this one that looks like a video on YouTube will play if you click it. These seemed targeted at my sites. We use a lot of embedded videos in our content. So, from time to time, we have had complaints about clickbait. I think ads like the one on the left are the culprit.
Brand confusion and/or intentionally trying to look like a function of our content. I realize some might think my largely English audience might stop once they see the ad in another language. But we do feature videos that are not in English.
These ads are increasing our Click Thru Rate (CTR).
I started my ad account a long time ago, a time when you got nervous if you got above a 3.5% click rate. Because you risked your account being shut down. It still seems a reasonable number. But in some cases, as of late, I have seen these ads cause the CTR to go as high as 8% to 17%. Which can cause publishers to receive lower payouts. Google clearly had no system to prevent this abuse, but they penalized us with a lower payout. Not to mention the anxiety veterans account holders get from seeing that increase.
Does this violate Google’s ad policy?
Yes, it does
Watching this, I feel Google is not enforcing its own guidelines against deceptive ads, such as those mimicking buttons or YouTube videos. These have appeared on my site, undermining user trust and, in turn, telling Facebook and Pinterest to show my content to fewer people. Much like Google’s testing of Vignette (full-page) ads back in September 2023. Disruptive elements lead to less traffic, and fewer people see Google ads. They do not factor this in their testing. Oh, and they look like garbage.
This discrepancy between Google’s stated policies and their actual enforcement is a critical concern for publishers like me. As it is left to publishers like myself to screen out problematic accounts.
ADs that target seniors
As if disruptive elements were not enough, I also have to screen through ads that claim to offer freebies and other benefits to seniors, and I am not talking about AARP. Keep in mind that 47% of my audience is over 55. There are a large number of seniors in that number. One of my biggest concerns is ads that target them. The ads I see fall into 6 categories.
- Healthcare Scams: Ads promoting unauthorized or fake healthcare products, often targeting age-related health issues.
- Financial Scams include false investment opportunities, retirement plans, or services with hidden fees.
- Tech Support Scams: Misleading ads offering tech support are actually phishing attempts or ways to install malware.
- Phishing Scams: Ads that mimic legitimate sources to steal personal or financial information.
- Social Security Scams: Ads claiming to offer extra Social Security payouts and Food allowances.
- Free Stuff Scams. Free phones, homes, money, discount cards… If it says free for seniors, it’s a scam.
That is only a list of my experiences. With the amount of ads we have to review, I could miss other types.
How does Google fix this?
Sometimes, it feels like Google overlooks rogue elements for the sake of profit. Publishers should have more control. I should not have to look through what ads I want on my sites every day. But it could be easier if.
- An option for Adsense accounts to opt out of ads from Google Ad accounts with less than 6 months of activity. Or, at the very least, opt out of ads that do not meet a higher criteria. The actions of bad actors reflect on publishers more than they do on the offender.
- Or, at the minimum, limit or have a requirement met to advertise on the in-article and top banner ads to ad accounts under 6 months of activity. This would seriously limit bad actors from trying to make their ad look like part of the content.
- Since the review process is left up to publishers, there should be an option to separate out new accounts from established ad accounts.
- Ad accounts need to be monitored under a trusted program that monitors to ensure advertised websites do not have malicious intent. Any attempts to try and install malware on site visitors should result in ads being paused and reviewed. Also, it would be nice to have a function to list certain companies as low-risk from our end.
- Place limits on how many ad accounts can advertise the same domain. A full ban on the domain for repeat offenders. I am repeatedly banning accounts that represent the same domain. The limit on domain bans is 500, and I am over my limit.
- Use of AI for pattern recognition of violation common patterns.
- Fix image recognition. Block any ads that look like elements of a site and not an ad. Like those stupid button ads.
It is not related, but it really is time for Adsense to stop the use of .PNG and JPEGs.
Also, it would be nice if Google would stop Yelp! and Yahoo from advertising garbage ads like this unless they let publishers pick the cost.
Two reviews, three stars… just what I am looking for in home security. Some day, I will cover an ad company equivalent to the tabloid section at a grocery checkout, Outbrain, and its competitors.