Using Google Adwords?

Do you know what you’re paying for? Check this article by my buddy Jarle Bergersen. Initially, the adsense /adwords system provided by Google was simply amazing. Since the text ads were displayed based on the contents of every page, they were always relevant and they usually showed up on the right sites.

Click-rates were astounding when I first implemented Google ads on Flashmagazine 4 years ago, somewhere between 3-4%. Numbers like these were pretty rare in the industry back then and they’ve been falling steadily ever since. Now the clickrate is about 1,5%  and it looks like the folks running adsense /adwords have gotten despearate to improve the situation. Using Google, you can’t really decide where your ads show up. Google will try to locate the best place for your ad and up until now they’ve done a decent job. With the introduction of Adsense for Domains, they are now allowing domain pirates and others that don’t provide value to get a bit of your advertising budget and there is no way you can prevent it (Norwegian version).

To me, it looks like Google is loosing it’s touch? Up until now, they’ve always done what is best for the end user/advertiser, but this time it’s apparently only about money?