Extra Large Google AdSense on wiseGEEK – New Format?
Google AdWords has recently changed the size of the ad titles in Google search results, but this is the first time I’ve witnessed the big titles on a web site. wiseGEEK, which is somewhat of a search engine, somewhat of an article directory, is running some rather large Google ads in their informational page results. wiseGEEK seems to be a pretty popular site, ranked # 5,282 in Alexa and with 2 Yahoo Directory listings, plus they’re doing a lot of Google AdSense advertising to their topical page listings.
But the ads on the wiseGEEK pages are what caught my eye. Not only are the advertisements extra large, but they also do not show the target page URL, like most Google AdSense ads do. Honestly, if there was not a little “Ads by Google” link above the Google powered text ads, I would swear that these were not AdSense.
Perhaps wiseGEEK is working with Google to test some new AdSense formats, or perhaps this is not AdSense at all but really a Google AdWords search result partner in wiseGEEK. That would explain the size of the ads and wiseGEEK is a ’search engine’. But what about the target URLs?
Note: I tried some searches for FDIC in Google and not seeing similar results, so these may not be AdWords. Additionally, Maine Bank & Trust really needs to implement geo-targeting into their AdWords/AdSense campaign. I’m 9,000 miles away from Maine, have never been to Maine, and have no intention of opening up a bank account in the Stephen King State.
Waked and started Posting So early (3:45 Am)..Wow
They are just using the javascript output feature of AdSense. Look at the page source and note the line google_ad_output = “js” which tells show_ads.js that it should call a script. there is a function in WiseGeek’s ads.js that they include to do the processing. The Google code calls their function and they generate a table with the results. I thought this feature was only for high-volume customers and by permission only, but it sure seems to be getting popular. It’s very easy to think of ways to abuse it.
You idiots they have a premium adsense account…lol
Google gives this features to big sites like imdb.com like answerbag.com
Now everyone has got a blog, lolz
They have special privileges because they get gazillions of visits a day, check AOL as another example.