We were the first to notify people about the click area changing in AdSense a few days ago. I thought it would be interesting to aggregate some of the reaction to the change from several channels. The theory is that since Google made the click area of an AdSense ad more defined (i.e. less clickable area) that AdSense publishers would realize a drop in earnings and CTR.
The AdSense blog posted about the change last night and used this graphic to illustrate the difference:
The changes should be live for all publisher, but I still see some ads, such as on my personal blog that still allow me to click on the white and description area. I suspect my ads did not change yet because I still do no have access to the new ad management features. In any event, we still have feedback from WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and ProBlogger.
Overall, the feedback is that CTR (click through rates) have dropped. But many are reporting that things are stable and CTR for them have not dropped. In addition, many people are reporting a slight decrease in earnings but on the whole, most people are not complaining. So, currently, the impact does not seem to be all that huge, as one would expect.
Quotable Drastic Change:
My CTR dropped by about 15% today. No increase in RPC. My lowest earnings all year.
Quotable Calmness in Change:
Averaging across all my sites, my CTR appears to be up about 50% compared to the rest of the week - which I find a little odd to say the least!
We will keep tracking the reaction towards this major change and keep you up to date on any significant changes.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums and Sphinn.
