Tech Tips and Reviews
Deceptive ads in Google
I have received a few emails lately, (I guess because of the upcoming holidays and all of the online shopping to be expected) and people are asking me if it is ok or safe to click on Google advertisements. Also I have been asked if it is safe to purchase items advertised through Google advertisements. As much I rant about about Google not being what I expected in many ways, I have to say that Google advertisements are safe. 90% of their reports on the Better Business Bureau have been positive. Considering how huge Google is, and knowing that the only people to typically leave a review or a comment would be angry people. This is great news.
There are other advertisement companies that have just the opposite in scoring.
See at this time of the year, and knowing how sales people are, knowing the salesman might jack the price up a bit to sweeten his pocket, would lead you into paying even more for an item that this little snot had no responsibility in the making of, shipping of or even the concept of the product, I can easily see why you would prefer to shop online for your products. Why pay the middleman who works for the middle man? By straight from the source.
So I have been looking online to find angry posts from people who shopped by, like lets say clicking an advertisement on a website somewhere because the advertisement was relevant to their query. I have yet to find someone complaining about a Google advertisement misleading them.
Now there are tons of rants about how people feel they are not being compensated well enough for their efforts. but that is complete not relevant to theis topic. But yes it will come up while you search for complaints about google advertisement results.
In the past, we have been burned by many crooked advertisers and lazy advertisement agents who do not scan/screen/ filter their advertisements. So of course people are curious and cautious about clicking any advertisement. I can whole heartedly assure you that you have less than a 5% chance of getting harmed by an advertisement you click from Google. Even if you are in that five percent, it is still better than what the salespeople do to you. Jacking prices 35% higher because you look like you are able to afford more than the last guy, this is just wrong. Wrong , Wrong, Wrong!
I trust Google advertisements and have yet to be burned by Google when I click an ad.
a way to be sure it is a google ad, look in the corner of the advertisement, you should see the word “Google”. If you do not see the word “Google” then that is not a google advertisement.
If I am on a website about black Friday sales, or Christmas sales or any kind of Holiday deals or Holiday Sales and I want to understand them and then I see an advertisement that shows the perfect holiday deal I am looking for and I see the Google logo, I feel 95% safe (plenty enough) clicking that advertisement to get the product or sales or deals that I want. but any other advertisement, I’m not so comfortable with. I may click to look but if it takes me to site that looks funny or not right, I will shut my browser and begin my search in Google again.
Try it for yourself. Most of the sites you find in google advertisements are reputable sites. If you have no idea who they are, check the company name at ripoff report, search bbb (Better Business Bureau). Try it with other advertisers also. You will be very satisfied with the results you find in Google advertisements.
I have used AdSense for a long while now. I have yet for one person to join the AdSense program through a referral link on my site. At least not reported. Then again, none of the affiliate programs I have ever signed to have let me know that anyone used my link. I do know that when i am looking fro a new advertiser for my site, I do check into the “hey try us” links. Can we trust DoubleClick yet?
But as the title stated, here is the email I received today:
Hello,
Thank you for participating in the AdSense Referrals program. We’re writing to let you know that we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate your patience during this transition and here are some alternative options to consider:
* Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit this site. *AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AFC ad units.
If you currently use referral ads, either to promote Google products or offerings from AdWords advertisers, AdSense Referrals code will no longer display ads beginning the last week of August. We encourage you to take the following steps before the product is retired:
* Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space. * Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create and save all reports related to the referrals program on your desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign information
Why is this happening? We’re constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center.
Sincerely.
The Google AdSense Team
Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about the retirement of an AdSense feature.
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Looks like that side money will not be coming, even if it never came anyway.