Bloggers Concerned About Google AdSense's Rich Media Plans

Posted on January 30, 2006

Google Adsense has been testing rich media in its advertisements. A ost on JenSense says these rich media tests has some bloggers concerned that carry AdSense ads on their blogs. JenSense says the rich media formats include "interstitials, expanding ads and floating ads."

Floating ads are ads that either stay on top as the page is scrolled, or ones that "float in" from the side of the page to the center of the page. Expanding ads are those that require user interaction to expand, either with a mouseover or a click. Interstitials are perhaps the most interesting addition to this rich media beta, because they are a format that people love to hate, and that are often more annoying than pop-ups. You have likely stumbled across an interstitial ad - they appear when you click through to read a page, and before they will show you the page, you are bypassed through to a full page ad that you must view before seeing the actual content you were wanting, often by having to click a link on the interstitial ad page.

On the plus side, advertisers will likely pay more for rich media and maybe some of that will trickle down to the bloggers. Another issue on the negative side is that rich media can annoy readers and slow down the load of a webpage. If the rich media becomes too annoying to a blog's readers they might leave and read rich media free blogs instead -- so maybe Adsense using bloggers have reason to worry.

Keep in mind that in addition to being popular for having frequently updated content blogs are also popular for what they don't contain. Not all bloggers are against a change and if Google AdSense provides a way for bloggers to select which ads are used everyone on its network should be content.