Search Engine Journal

Crossing the Google AdSense Border

Sure Google AdSense has been around for years now and yes, it has almost single handedly monetized the blogging and problogger revolution (especially with Blogspot Adsense in the mix), but every once in a while someone reminds the crowd of Google AdSense basics which can help to increase a site’s contextual advertising performance by 100% - don’t use borders.

Peter Da Vanzo writes on the V7N blog :

Using no borders should result in increased click-thru because visitors are less likely to think the links are advertisements. Off-line publications tend to keep editorial and advertising separate. The advertising is formatted in a bold, obvious way, often using thick borders and boxes. As a result, people often ignore these areas online. People who read publications aren’t looking for links - web visitors are.

If you’re using the default setting of Adsense, and leaving borders switched on - try turning them off by making the border color the same color as your background.

It’s quite elementary really, borders stop people or objects from crossing, even the mouse cursor. They have (in most cases) a negative effect on those trying to cross borders, and the mouse cursors roaming across a site run into the same dilemma. Try running your AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network or your “contextual advertising network of choice” ads for a day or two without borders and compare the results.

Chances are, you’ll stand behind your own site’s open ‘AdSense’ border policy.